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HISTORY OF THE LITERATURE

OF

ANCIENT GREECE.

VOLUME II.

Von. II. | . a

ELS

HISTORY OF THE LITERATURE

OF

ANCIENT GREECE.

\ 2d
ot ῷ «"

By K. re MULLER

LATE PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN.
eis Δ Kt DA +he Geyman many ger β΄
vy C.. δ, Lewis ὃ, “yew, Donaldson
ae
CONTINUED AFTER THE AUTHOR'S DEATH BY

JOHN WILLIAM DONALDSON, D.D

CLASSICAL EXAMINER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON;

AND LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

ΙΝ. THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II. A a

LONDON :
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

Sg gue ge Μὴ μα

τω»

μι μὰ

CONTENTS

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME

SECOND PERIOD—(CONTINUVED).

CHAPTER XXVII.
ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

. The comic element in Greek poetry due to the worship of Bacchus
Also connected with the Comus at the lesser Dionysia : Phallic songs
Beginnings of dramatic comedy at Megara : asia Chionides, &c .
The perfectors of the old Attic comedy". . . ᾿
The structure of comedy. What it has in common with tragedy

. Peculiar arrangement of the chorus; Parabasis . aos
. Dances, metres, and style . ΤΣ ἐν δε,

CHAPTER XXVIII.
ARISTOPHANES.

. Events of the life of Aristophanes ; the mode of his first appearance .
His dramas : the Detaleis; the mee ge : 5 25

The Acharnians analyzed . 5 ἘΠῚ

The Knights .

The Clouds

The Wasps

. The Peace

. The Birds

. The Lysistrata ; Thesmophivichake

. The Frogs

. The Leclesiazuse ; the Second Plutus. " Pransition be the middle δον ,

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE OTHER POETS OF THE OLD COMEDY—THE MIDDLE AND NEW

COMEDY.

81. Characteristics of Cratinus . . . . ..
2. Eupolis

3. Peculiar ἠδ ουεῖν, of Gentes tds connexion with Sicilian sienctiy

vl

§ 4.
5.

6, The middle Attic comedy ; poets of this class akin to those of the Sicilian

f

8.
9.

+3.
4,
5.
6.

CONTENTS.

Sicilian comedy originates in the Doric farces of Megara
Events in the life of Epicharmus ; general tendency and nature of his comselgee

comedy in many of their pieces . . . 0 «© © + «wae
Poets of the new comedy the immediate successors of bass of the middle

comedy. How the new comedy becomes naturalized at Rome . .. -
Public morality at Athens atthe time of the new comedy . . .. - +
Character of the new comedy in connexion therewith

CHAPTER XXX.

LYRIC AND EPIC POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

. The Dithyramb becomes the chief form of Athenian lyric ee Lasus

of Hermione . ey
. New style of the Githjesa ΕΥΡΈΣΝΝ “ Melediideas Philoxenus.

Cinesias. Phrynis. Timotheus. Polyeidus. . . . #...~.
Mode of producing the new dithyramb : its contents and character .
Reflective lyric poetry . τος TY SOME! De ΟΣ ον
Social and political elegies. The Zyde of Antimachus essentially different
Epic poetry. Panyasis. Cheerilus. Antimachus. οἰ G6. ieee

CHAPTER XXXI.

POLITICAL ORATORY AT ATHENS PREVIOUSLY TO THE INFLUENCE

OF RHETORIC.

§ 1. Importance of prose at this period . He τ
2. Oratory at Athens rendered necessary by the aamicovebionl Savin of oovasies
ment . . . ἐὰν te ,
3. Themistocles ; Petiians sawer of their τῆνος Ξ 5
4, Chaxacteristics of their oratory in relation to their oniniiek ‘ol modek of
thought ... Tere δον, ς΄ ὩΣ
5. Form and style of their ceded pe en TANS, 910 a ade
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE RHETORIC OF THE SOPHISTS,
§ 1. Profession of the Sophists: essential elements of their doctrines, The
principles of Protagoras . .
2. Opinions of Gorgias. Pernicious effects of his doctrines cmpestatind as they
were carried out by his disciples . . . :
3. Important services of the Sophists in forming a cake wiyfas ‘aiftepeat ree
dencies of the Sicilian and other Sophists in this respect . . . . +
ig, he rhotoric of Gorgias...) 4. ap 0 5 so oe

ΣΙΝ Jorms of expression <. 01. aloes. la a a

CONTENTS. vu

CHAPTER XXXIITI,

THE BEGINNINGS OF REGULAR POLITICAL AND FORENSIC ORATORY
AMONG THE ATHENIANS,

PAGE
$1. Antiphon’s career and employments . . . ...... . + + 103
2. His school-exercises, the Tetralogies . . . ars. Sr nae FO

3. His speeches before the courts ; character of his ‘oratory a ae at ae ee
4, 5. More particular examination of his style . . . . Sater esY ΡΣ 5...
G. Andocides; hislifeand character . . οὖ. =. + + + e + et + 13

CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

81, The life of Thucydides ; his training that of the age of Pericles . . . . 116
2. His new method of treating history . . cg em ka

3, 4. The consequent distribution and ὐδοιίνομε οὔ his siktnstals oat ee AO

5. His mode of treating these materials ; his research and criticism . . . 124

6, 7. Accuracy and intellectual dharastec OF his ἡ οι του ee oe τὰς

8, 9. The speeches considered as the soul of hishistory . . . . . τ. 127
10, 11. His mode of expression and the structure of his sentences . . . . 132

CHAPTER XXXYV.
THE NEW CULTIVATION OF ORATORY BY LYSIAS.

§ 1. Events which followed the Soe ψήνας ἃ war. The adventures of Lysias.
Leading epochs of his life. . . ah ital erry creat babs ΔΕΙ͂Ν
2, The earlier sophistical rhetoric of ia ER TE Sk ek 30
3. The style of this rhetoric preserved in his later sy Aaa ἰἠθϑοῖδι ΠΣ ὙΔΕ
4, Change in the oratory of Lysias produced by his own impulses and εἰ his

employment as a writer of speeches for private individuals . . 143
5. Analysis of his speech against Agoratus . . . . . +. + + «© + + 0144
6. General view of his extant orations . . . . + © «+ + © «© «© « 146

CHAPTER XXXVI.
ISOCRATES.

§ 1. Early training of Isocrates ; but slightly influenced by Socrates. . . 148
2. School of Isocrates ; its ἐπεξ repute; his attempts to influence the polities

of the day without thoroughly understanding them . . . . . . . 149

3. The form of a speech the principal matter in hisjudgment . . . . . 152
τά, New development which he gave to prose composition . . . + - » 153
5. His structure of periods . . . . « teehee ad sacs) s begs 185
6. Smoothness and evenness of his style. . . cobs ἔων μα εἰν cal FST

7. He prefers the panegyrical oratory to the Sucaie Ue Pa ΤΡ ae 158

Ψ1Π CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE NEW BEGINNING OF ATTIC TRAINING—-FOUNDATION OF THE

SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
PAGE

. Socrates ; his literary importance . . . 161
; i cakotratio tendency of Athenian literature dase: the Pelopooneeiaain war 162
- How far Socrates was the founder of dialectical reasoning and moral

philosophy . . » ‘tn econ cy at

. Imperfect Socratic schools; ἐ Bucleides ahd the Massel οἰ ἐμ
. Antisthenes and the Cynics . . 5 1 τς ee te tt .ΞΞ
. Aristippus and the Cyrenaicas . . «+ + 6 ees es sl

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

§ 1. Life and adventures of Xenophon . . « 4 s ss so se « 6) aGB
2. The practical design of his writings . . bi) τ -1 bc) Fe fie eine ee
8. His Grecian History ; its merits and defesien Το τ
4, The Anabasis . . οὐ σέο ee
5. The Memorials and iy te of Sebaaten % οἷν on ᾿οσρξον is elie See
6. The Cyropedia and Agesilaus « ss ν τὸ +s τῶ « σῷ “asin s 0) GS
7. Xenophon’s minor tracts. . . ὦ gg ag re ol ee eo
8. The leading characteristics of his shale: yee a et
9. Ctesias, a contemporary of Xenophon; his works . . . .. . . . 200

CHAPTER XXXIX.
PLATO.

§ 1. Importance of Plato’ 8 writings even in a shine pointofview . . . . 202
2. lifeof Plato . . . Pees ee
8. His political character pa pe Dat ΤΥ ΑΝ τ + tn) ἐς ΠΣ
4, His literary relations to his contemporaries and ξαδορλβειβες Lei ΝΝ
5. Why he wrote in dialogues . . . Ὧν π΄.
6. Chronological order and scientific iconanseeeens of his wee os 6 eo
7, Plato’adialectios © 2. 61 8 et tt νον Oe
8, His ethical system. . wb wwe αἰ ΤΑΣ. Oo ΞΕ
9. His physical speculations. . . s 8 8 te se 0 ag Ξ Ξ--ὲ-Ὁ

10. Peculiarities and excellences of his style thw 3 See 3 ol
CHAPTER XL.
ARISTOTLE.

§ 1. Life of Aristotle . . . ee ee CSU ρς ΞΟ
2. General view of his writings: Tren Tete Ξ
8. His metaphysics and Loe oe Nk fae Προς ΞΕ
ἘΠΕ Fs , τ TE ὃ

CONTENTS.
πο] TIO gS kk ke tn ek me ee
6. Moral philosophy Sra τ Se Ra PRR τέξει λα. eae
7. Politics ;
8. Natural history wad general physis ~ keels ee
9. Miscellanies. . . Poa ὡς SOE RS Ὁ

10. Deeded aivle οἱ hie writiags έν σέ ΣΝ

CHAPTER XLI.
DEMOSTHENES.

$1. Life of Demosthenes . . ‘
2. Harangues to the people, chiedly relating to Philip of ἜῬΕΤΤΝ :
3. Orations on public causes. . ἢ
4, Speeches against Aischines . . . . .
5. Speeches in the law courts on private causes .
6. Style and characteristics of Demosthenes .

CHAPTER XLII.
ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

§ 1. The contemporaries of Demosthenes, with the exception of Iseus, may be
classed as patriots and Macedonizers . . 3 aiirnkeeaaestl.s
2. Orators of the Alexandrian canon. Iseus . . . . «© « + © « ε
3. Party of the patriots (a) ὍΡΟΝ :
4, (Ὁ) Hypereides. . . .
5. Macedonian party (a) Bechines. ΤΕΥ
6. (6) Deinarchus. .. Shs) aekocae Se}

CHAPTER XLITI.

- RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND PROVINCIAL ANTIQUARIES.

§ 1. Connexion between Rhetoric and History. School of Isocrates
2. Ephorus . ΠΡΟ αι re apr Tes, of Ese ied el»
3. Theopompus . . Sie SN eh. φν ὃ, πὰ RS ρα
4, Sicilian school : κω δ PRT Me? dt RP ere Te Rr’ ΜΝ
5. Philistus

ὃ, Writers of the Atthides .

CHAPTER XLIV.

MEDICAL LITERATURE—WRITINGS ATTRIBUTED TO HIPPOCRATES.

81, Life of Hippocrates . .
2. Origin and growth of aitiel literdture snags the γον

8. Genuine works of Hippocrates . ;
πο WORKS: . sis + . ὡς ὦ
5, Spurious works. ΟΣ eh
6. Publication of the Tinposcetie écllpetion Ἐν cee re

7. Style and literary merits of Hippocrates .

311
325
330
334
340
342

348
349
351
356
363
369

372
374
377
382
384
388

IA me oo bo καὶ

CONTENTS.

THIRD PERIOD OF GREEK LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XLV.

THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

PAGE
Alexandria and the Ptolemies . . + oe aan

. Alexandrian poets ; their proper Ginanifieation nal avieasebe: ν τό Ὁ
. Philetas in Alexandria, and Aratusin Macedonia . . . . . . «© « 422
Callimachus . . PP MrPermerirrerrry 1

. Lycophron and the tciisdinns ΕἾ woh ᾿ς ‘ 435

. The epic and didactic poets, Apollonius, Bhianns, ποδός best Nicander 441
. The bucolic poets, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. . . « «© « «© « 449
. The parodists and phlyacographers. . «1 «© « «© + «© © « «6 « « 402

CHAPTER XLVI.

PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

. Classification of the prose writers of Alexandria: Demetrius the Phalerian 466

2. (a) Grammarians and critics: Zenodotus of Ephesus, bares a 3 of

Byzantium, and Aristarchus of Samothrace . . . . 469
5. The recension of Homer../ .5 «᾿ς τ ὉΠ ΠΥ
4, (Ὁ) Historians and chronologists . . . oe ea or
5. Translations of Egyptian, Chaldean, and ites annla Fae’ 484
6. (c) Pure and applied mathematics: Euclid, ee Apolloagag of

Perga, Eratosthenes, and Hipparchus . . . ὶ δ ει ee στο ς΄

ERRATA.

Page 236, line 11, for ‘ Gorgias’ read ‘ the Gorgias.’
Page 314, lines 23, 24, for ‘eight or nine’ read ‘ eighteen,’
Page 387, note 1, line 2, for ‘“A@ams’ read ‘*A@wus.’

A

HISTORY OF THE LITERATURE

OF

ANCIENT GREECE;

DOWN TO THE DEATH OF ISOCRATES.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN MANUSCRIPT OF

K. 0. MULLER,

LATE PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN ;

BY
SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS, Barr., Μ.Ρ,,
LATE STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD ;

AND

JOHN WILLIAM DONALDSON, DD,

LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

HISTORY

OF THE

LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE.

SECOND PERIOD (Continued).

CHAPTER XXVII.

ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

§ 1. The comic element in Greek poetry due to the worship of Bacchus. § 2. Also
connected with the Comus at the lesser Dionysia: Phallic songs. § 3. Begin-
nings of dramatic comedy at Megara: Susarion, Chionides, &c. ὃ 4. The per-
fectors of the old Attic comedy. § 5. The structure of comedy. What it has in
common with tragedy. § 6. Peculiar arrangement of the chorus ; Parabasis.
§ 7. Dances, metres, and style.

mo I. AVING followed one species of the drama, Tragedy,

through its rise, progress, and decay, up to the time
when it almost ceases to be poetry, we must return once more
to its origin, in order to consider how it came to pass that the
other species, Comedy, though it sprang from the same causes,
and was matured by the same vivifying influences, nevertheless
acquired so dissimilar a form.

The opposition between tragedy and comedy did not make
its first appearance along with these different species of the
drama: it is as old as poetry itself. By the side of the noble
and the great, the common and the base always appear in the
guise of folly, and thus make the opposed qualities more con-
spicuous. Nay more, in the same proportion as the mind
nurtured and cultivated within itself its conceptions of the
perfect order, beauty, and power, reigning in the universe and
exhibiting themselves in the life of man, so much the more
capable and competent would it become to comprehend the

Vot. 11. B

2 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

weak and perverted in their whole nature and manner, and to
penetrate to their very heart and centre. In themselves the
base and the perverted are certainly no proper subject for
poetry: when, however, they are received among the con-
ceptions of a mind teeming with thoughts of the great and
the beautiful, they obtain a place in the world of the beautiful
and become poetic. In consequence of the conditional and
limited existence of our race, this tendency of the mind is
always conversant about bare realities, while the opposite one
has, with free creative energy, set up for itself a peculiar do-
main of the imagination. Real life has always furnished
superabundant materials for comic poetry; and if the poet in
working up these materials has often made use of figures which
do not actually exist, these are always intended to represent —
actual appearances, circumstances, men, and classes of men:
the base and the perverted are not invented; the invention
consists in bringing them to light in their true form. A chief
instrument of comic representation is Wit, which may be de- —
fined to be,—a startling detection and display of the perverted —
and deformed, when the base and the ridiculous are suddenly —
illuminated by the flash of genius. Wit cannot lay hold of |
that which is really sacred, sublime, and beautiful: in a certain —
sense, it invariably degrades what it handles; but it cannot
perform this office unless it takes up a higher and safer ground
from which to hurl its darts. Even the commonest sort of
wit, which is directed against the petty follies and mistakes of
social life, must have for its basis a consciousness of the pos-
session of that discreet reserve and elegant refinement which —
constitute good manners. The more concealed the perversity,
the more it assumes the garb of the right and the excellent; so
much the more comic is it when suddenly seen through and
detected, just because it is thus brought. most abruptly into
contrast with the true and the good.

We must now break off these general considerations, which
do not properly belong to the problem we have to solve, and
are only designed to call attention to the cognate and cor-
responding features of tragic and comic poetry. If we return
to history, we meet with the comic element even in epic poetry,
partly in connexion with the heroic epos, where, as might be

WORSHIP OF BACCHUS. 3

expected, it makes its appearance only in certain passages,! and

partly cultivated in a separate form, as in the Margites. Lyric

poetry had produced in the iambics of Archilochus masterpieces

_ of passionate invective and derision, the form and matter of

which had the greatest influence on dramatic comedy. It was
not, however, till this dramatic comedy appeared, that wit and
ridicule attained to that greatness of form, that unconstrained

freedom, and, if we may so say, that inspired energy in the

representation of the common and contemptible which every
friend of antiquity identifies with the name of Aristophanes.
At that happy epoch, when the full strength of the national
ideas and the warmth of noble feelings were still united with
the sagacious, refined, and penetrating observation of human
life, for which the Athenians were invariably distinguished among
the other Greeks, Attic genius here found the form in which
it could not merely point out the depraved and the foolish as
they appeared in individuals, but even grasp and subdue them
when gathered together in masses, and follow them into the
secret places where the perverted tendencies of the age were
fabricated.

It was the worship of Bacchus again which rendered the
construction of these great forms possible. It was by means of
it that the imagination derived that bolder energy to which we
have already ascribed the origin of the drama in general. The

nearer the Attic comedy stands to its origin, the more it has of
that peculiar inebriety of mind which the Greeks showed in

everything relating to Bacchus; in their dances, their songs,
their mimicry, and their sculpture. The unrestrained enjoy-
ments of the Bacchic festivals imparted to all the motions of
comedy a sort of grotesque boldness and mock dignity which
raised to the region of poetry even what was vulgar and common
in the representation: at the same time, this festal jollity of

? As in the episode of Thersites and the comic scene with Agamemnon, above,
chap. V. §8. The Odyssey has more elements of the satyric drama (as in the story
of Polyphemus) than of the comedy proper. Satyric poetry brings rude, unintel-
lectual, half-bestial humanity into contact with the tragical ; it places by the lofty
forms of the heroes not human perverseness, but the want of real humanity, whereas
comedy is conversant about_the deterioration of civilized humanity. With regard
to Hesiod’s comic vein, see above, chap. XI. ὃ 3. ; and for the Margites, the same
chap. § 4.

B 2

4 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

comedy at once broke through the restraints of decent beha-
viour and morality which, on other occasions, were strictly
attended to in those days. ‘ Let him stand out of the way of
our choruses,’ cries Aristophanes,' ‘who has not been initiated

into the Bacchic mysteries of the steer-eating Cratinus.’ The _

great comedian gives this epithet to his predecessor in order to
compare him with Bacchus himself. A later writer regards
comedy as altogether a product of the drunkenness, stupe-
faction, and wantonness of the nocturnal Dionysia ;? and though
this does not take into account the bitter and serious earnest-
ness which so often forms a background to its bold and un-
bridled fun, it nevertheless explains how comedy could throw
aside the restraints usually imposed by the conventions of
society. The whole was regarded as the wild drollery of an
ancient carnival. When the period of universal inebriety and
licensed frolic had passed away, all recollection of what had
been seen and done was dismissed, save where the deeper
earnestness of the comic poet had left a sting in the hearts of
. the more intelligent among the audience.*

§ 2. The side of the multifarious worship of Bacchus to
which comedy attached itself, was naturally not the same as
that to which the origin of tragedy was due. Tragedy, as we
have seen, proceeded from the Lena, the winter feast of
Bacchus, which awakened and fostered an enthusiastic sympathy
with the apparent sorrows of the god of nature. But comedy
was connected, according to universal tradition, with the lesser
or country Dionysia, (τὰ μικρὰ, τὰ κατ᾽ ἄγρους Διονύσια.) the
concluding feast of the vintage, at which an exulting joy over
the inexhaustible exuberant riches of nature manifested itself in
wantonness and petulance of every kind. In such a feast the
comus or Bacchanalian procession was a principal ingredient: it
was, of course, much less orderly and ceremonious than the

comus at which Pindar’s Epinician odes were sung, (chap. XV. -

1 Frogs, v. 356.

? Eunapius, Vite Sophist. p. 32, ed. Boissonade, who explains from this the re-
presentation of Socrates in the Clouds. During the comic contest the people kept
eating and tippling ; the choruses had wine given to them as they went on and
came off the stage. Philochorus in Athenzus, xi. p. 464 F.

3 The σοφοί, who are opposed to the γελῶντες, Aristoph. Ecclesiaz. 1155.

PHALLIC SONGS. 5

§ 3. p. 221,) but very lively and tumultuous, a varied mixture
of the wild carouse, the noisy song, and the drunken dance.
According to Athenian authorities, which connect comedy at
the country Dionysia immediately with the comus,' it is indu-
bitable that the meaning of the word comedy is ‘a comus song,’
although others, even in ancient times, describe it as ‘a village
song,” not badly as far as the fact is concerned, but the ety-
-mology is manifestly erroneous.

With the Bacchic comus, which turned a noisy festal banquet
into a boisterous procession of revellers, a custom was from the
earliest times connected, which was the first cause of the origin
of comedy. The symbol of the productive power of nature was
carried about by this band of revellers, and a wild, jovial song
was recited in honour of the god in whom dwells this power of
nature, namely, Bacchus himself, or one of his companions.
Such phallophoric or ithyphallic songs were customary in
various regions of Greece. The ancients give us many hints
about the variegated garments, the coverings for the face, such
as masks or thick chaplets of flowers, and the processions and
songs of these comus singers.* Aristophanes, in his Acharnians,
gives a most vivid picture of the Attic usages in this respect:
in that play, the worthy Diczopolis, while war is raging around,
alone peacefully celebrates the country Dionysia on his own
farm; he has sacrificed with his slaves, and now prepares for
the sacred procession ; his daughter carries the basket as Cane-
phorus; behind her the slave holds the phallus aloft; and,
while his wife regards the procession from the roof of the house,
he himself begins the phallus song, ‘ O Phales, boon companion
of Bacchus, thou nightly reveller !’ with that strange mixture of
wantonness and serious piety which was possible only in the
elementary religions of the ancient world.

1See the quotations chap. XXI. § 5. ὁ κῶμος καὶ of κωμῳδοί. The feast of the
great or city Dionysia is thus described, but it is obvious that the connexion pro-
ceeded from the country Dionysia.

2 From κώμη. The Peloponnesians, according to Aristotle, Poet. c. 3, used this
etymology to support their claim to the invention of comedy, because they called
villages κώμαι, but the Athenians δῆμοι.

8 Atheneus, xiv. p. 621, 2, and the lexicographers Hesychius and Suidas, in
various articles relating to the subject. Phallophori, Ithyphalli, Autokabdali,
Tambiste, are the different names of these merryandrews,

6 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

It belonged especially to the ceremonies of this Bacchic feast
that after singing the song in honour of the god who was the
leader of the frolic, the merry revellers found an object for
their unrestrained petulance in whatever came first in their way,
and overwhelmed the innocent spectators with a flood of witti-
cisms, the boldness of which was justified by the festival itself.
When the phallophori at Sicyon had come into the theatre with
their motley garb, and had saluted Bacchus with a song, they
turned to the spectators and jeered and flouted whomsoever
they pleased. How intimately these jests were connected with
the Bacchic song, and how essentially they belonged to it, may
be seen very clearly from the chorus in the Frogs of Aristo-
phanes. ‘This chorus is supposed to consist of persons initiated
at Eleusis, who celebrate the mystic Dionysus Iacchus as the
author of festal delights and the guide to a life of bliss in the
other world. But this Iacchus is also, as Dionysus, the god of
comedy, and the jokes which were suitable to these initiated
persons, as an expression of their freedom from all the troubles
of this life, also belonged to the country Dionysia, and attained
to their highest and boldest exercise in comedy : this justifies
the poet in treating the chorus of the Myste as merely a mask
for the comic chorus, and in making it speak and sing much
that was suitable to the comic chorus alone, which it resembled
in all the features of its appearance.’ And thus it is quite in
the spirit of the old original comedy that the chorus, after
having in beautiful strains repeatedly celebrated Demeter and
Iacchus, the god who has vouchsafed to them to dance and joke
with impunity, directly after, and without any more immediate
inducement, attacks an individual arbitrarily selected : ‘ Will ‘Ye,
that we join in quizzing Archedemus ?” &c.?

§ 3. This old lyric comedy, which did not differ much either
in origin or form from the Iambics of Archilochus, may have
been sung in various districts of Greece, just as it maintained
its ground in many places even after the development of the

1 See below, chap. XXVIII. § ro.

2 When Aristotle says (Poet. 4) that comedy originated ἀπὸ τῶν ἐξαρχόντων τὰ
φαλλικά, he alludes to these unpremeditated jokes, which the leader of the Phallus
song might have produced,

MEGARA. v

dramatic comedy.’ By what gradations, however, dramatic
comedy was developed, can only be inferred from the form of
this drama itself, which still retained much of its original
organization, and from the analogy of tragedy: for even the
ancients laboured under a great deficiency of special tradition
and direct information with regard to the progress of this branch
of the drama. Aristotle says that comedy remained in obscurity
at the first, because it was not thought serious or important
enough to merit much attention ; that it was not till late that
the comic poet received a chorus from the archon as a public
matter ; and that previously, the choral-dancers were volunteers.”
The Icarians, the inhabitants of a hamlet which, according to
the tradition, was the first to receive Bacchus in that part of
the country, and doubtless celebrated the country Dionysia
with particular earnestness, claimed the honour of inventing
comedy ; it was here that Susarion was said, for the first time,
to have contended with a chorus of Icarians, who had smeared
their faces with wine-lees, (whence their name, τρυγῳδοὶ, or
*lee-singers,’) in order to obtain the prize, a basket of figs and
a jarof wine. It is worth noticing, that Susarion is said to
have been properly not of Attica, but a Megarian of Tripodiscus.*
This statement is confirmed by various traditions and hints
᾿ from the ancients, from which we may infer that the Dorians of
Megara were distinguished by a peculiar fondness for jest and
ridicule, which produced farcical entertainments full of jovial
merriment and rude jokes. If we consider, in addition to this,
that the celebrated Sicilian comedian Epicharmus dwelt at

1 The existence of a lyrical tragedy and comedy, by the side of the dramatic, has
been lately established chiefly by the aid of Beotian inscriptions, (Corpus Inscript.
Grecar. No. 1584,) though it has been violently controverted by others. But
though we should set aside the interpretation of these Bceotian monuments, it ap-
pears even from Aristotle, Poet. 4, (τὰ φαλλικὰ ἃ ἔτι καὶ viv ἐν πολλαῖς τῶν πόλεων
διαμένει νομιζόμενα,) that the songs, from which the dramatic comedy arose, still
maintained their ground, as the ἰθύφαλλοι also were danced in the orchestra at
Athens in the time of the orators. Hyperides apud Harpocrat. ν. ᾿Ιθύφαλλοι. It
is clear that the comedies of Antheus the Lindian were also of this kind, according
to the expressions of Athenzeus, (x. p. 445); ‘he composed comedies and many other
things in the form of poems, which he sang as leader to his fellow-revellers who bore
the phallus with him.’

2 Poet. 5. Comp. above, chap. XXIII. 8 1.

3 See Miiller’s Dorians, Book IV. ch. 7. ὃ τ.

8 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

Megara in Sicily, (a colony of the Megarians who lived near
the borders of Attica,) before he went to Syracuse, and that the
Sicilian Megarians, according to Aristotle, laid claim to the
invention of comedy, as well as the neighbours of the Athenians,
we must believe that some peculiar sparks of wit were contained
in this little Dorian tribe, which, having fallen on the sus-
ceptible temperaments of the other Dorians, and also of the
common people of Attica, brought the talent for comedy to a
speedy development,

Susarion, however, who is said to have flourished in Solon’s
time, about Ol. 50, somewhat earlier than Thespis,’ stands quite
alone in Attica; a long time elapses before we hear of any
further cultivation of comedy by poetsof eminence. This will
not surprise us if we recollect that this interval is filled up by
the long tyranny of Peisistratus and his sons, who would feel it
due to their dignity and security not to allow a comic chorus,
even under the mask of Bacchic inebriety and merriment, to
utter ribald jests against them before the assembled people of
Athens ; as understood by the Athenians of those days, comedy
could not be brought to perfection save by republican freedom
and equality. This was the reason why comedy continued so
long an obscure amusement of noisy rustics, which no archon
superintended, and which no particular poet was willing to
avow : although, even in this modest retirement, it made some
sudden advances, and developed completely its dramatic form.
Consequently, the first of the eminent poets received it in a
definite and tolerably complete form.’ This poet was Cu1on1pEs,
whom Aristotle reckons the first of the Attic comedians,
(omitting Myllus and some other comedians, though they also
left their works in writing), and of whom we are credibly in-
formed‘ that he began to bring out plays eight years before the
Persian war. (Ol. 73, B.c. 488). He was followed by Maenzs,
also born in the Bacchic village Icaria, who for a long time

1 Parian marble. Ep. 39. 2 See above, ch. XX. § 3.
3 Aristot. Poet. 5. ἤδη δὲ σχήματά τίνα αὐτῆς ἐχούσης ol λεγόμενοι αὐτῆς ποιηταὶ
μνημονεύονται.
*Suidas, v. "Χιωνίδης. Consequently, Aristotle, Poet. 3, (or, according to F.
Ritter, a later interpreter,) must be in error when he places Chionides a good deal
later than Epicharmus,

CRATINUS—THEOPOMPUS. 9

delighted the Athenians with his cheerful and multifarious
fictions. To the same age of comedy belongs Ecruantipss,
who was so little removed from the style of the Megarian farce,
that he expressly remarked in one of his pieces,—‘ He was not
bringing forward a song of the Megarian comedy ; he had grown
ashamed of making his drama Megarian.’!

§ 4. The second period of comedy comprises poets who
flourished just before and during the Peloponnesian war. Cra-
tinus died Ol. 89, 2. B.c. 423, being then very old; he seems
to have been not much younger than Aischylus, and occupies a
corresponding place among the comic poets; all accounts of
his dramas, however, relate to the latter years of his life; and
all we can say of him is, that he was not afraid to attack
Pericles in his comedies at a time when that statesman was in
the height of his reputation and power? Crares raised himself,
from being an actor in the plays of Cratinus, to the rank of a
distinguished poet: a career common to him with several of the
ancient comedians. TrLecLerpes and Hermrrpvs also belong to
the comic poets of the time of Pericles. Evroxis did not begin
to bring out comedies till after the beginning of the Pelopon-
nesian war (Ol. 87, 3. B.c. 429); his career terminated with
that war. AristropHaNEs made his first appearance under
another name in Ol. 88, τ. B.c. 427, and under his own name,
Ol. 88, 4. B.c. 424; he went on writing till Ol. 97, 4. B.c. 388.
Among the contemporaries of this great comic poet, we have
also Purynicuvs (from Ol. 87, 3. B.c. 429); Pxato (from Ol. 88,
I. B.C. 427 to Ol. 97, 1. B.c. 391, or even longer) ; PHERECRATES
(who also flourished during the Peloponnesian war) ; AMEIPSIAs,
who was sometimes a successful rival of Aristophanes ; Leucon,
who also frequently contended with Aristophanes; Droc.zs,
Puitytiius, Sannyrion, Strarris, Tarorompvs, who flourished
towards the end of the Peloponnesian war and subsequently,

1 Μεγαρικῆς
κωμῳδίας dow’ οὐ δίειμ᾽ " ἠσχυνόμην
τὸ δρᾶμα Μεγαρικὸν ποιεῖν.
According to the arrangement of this fragment, (quoted by Aspasius on Aristot.
Eth. Nic. iv. 2,) by Meineke, Historia Critica Comicorum Grecorum, p. 22, which
is undoubtedly the correct one.
? As appears from the fragments referring to the Odeion and the long walls.

10 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

form the transition to the middle comedy of the Athe-
nians.’

We content ourselves for the present with this brief chrono-
logical view of the comic poets of the time, because in some
respects it is impossible to characterize these authors, and in
others, this cannot be done till we have become better acquainted
with Aristophanes, and are able to refer to the creations of this
poet. Accordingly, we will take a comparative glance at some
of the pieces of Cratinus, Eupolis, and some others, after we
have considered the comedy of Aristophanes: but must remark
here beforehand that it is infinitely more difficult to form a con-
ception of a lost comedy from the title and some fragments,
than it would be to deal similarly with a lost tragedy. In the
latter, we have in the mythical foundation something on which
we may depend, and by the conformation of which the edifice
to be restored must be regulated; whereas comedy, with its
greater originality, passes at once from one distant object to
another, and unites things which seem to have no connexion
with one another, so that it is impossible to follow its rapid
movements merely by the help of some traces accidentally
preserved.

§ 5. Before we turn to the works of Aristophanes, we must
make ourselves acquainted with comedy in the same way that
we have already done with tragedy, in order that the technical
forms into which the poet had to cast his ideas and fancies may
stand clearly and definitely before our eyes. These forms are
partly the same as in the tragic drama,—as the locality and its
permanent apparatus were also common to both; in other
respects they are peculiar to comedy, and are intimately con-
nected with its origin and development.

To begin with the locality, the stage and orchestra, and, on
the whole, their meaning, were common to tragedy and comedy.

The stage (Proscenion) is, in comedy also, not the inside of

1 According to the researches of Meineke, Hist. Orit. Com. Grecorum. Callias,
who lived before Strattis, was likewise a comedian: his γραμματικὴ τραγῳδία
could not have been a serious tragedy, but must have been a joke; the object and
occasion of it, however, cannot easily be guessed at. The old grammarians must
have been joking when they asserted that Sophocles and Euripides imitated this
γραμματικὴ τραγῳδία in some piece or other.

POINTS COMMON WITH TRAGEDY. 11

a house, but some open space, in the background of which, on
the wall of the scene, were represented public and private build-
ings. Nay, it appeared to the ancients so utterly impossible to
regard the scene as a room of a house, that even the new
comedy, little as it had to do with actual public life, neverthe-
less for the sake of representation, as we have remarked above,
(chap. XXII. § 5,) made the scenes which it represents public :
it endeavours, with as little sacrifice of nature as it may, so to
arrange all the conversations and events that they may take
place in the street and at the house-doors. The generally
political subjects of the old comedy rendered this much less
difficult ; and where it was absolutely necessary to represent an
inner chamber of a house, they availed themselves of the
resource of the Eccyclema.

Another point, common to tragedy and comedy, was the
limited number of the actors, by whom all the parts were to be
performed. According to an authority,’ (on which, however, we
cannot place perfect reliance,) Cratinus raised the number to
three, and the scenes in most of the comedies of Aristophanes,
as also in the plays of Sophocles and Euripides, can be per-
formed by three actors only. The number of subordinate per-
sons in comedy has made the change of parts more frequent and
more varied. Thus, in the Acharnians, while the first player
acted the part of Diczopolis, the second and third actors had to
undertake now the Herald and Amphitheus, then again the
ambassador and Pseudartabas; subsequently the wife and
daughter of Diczeopolis, Euripides, and Cephisophon; then the
Megarian and the Sycophant, and the Beotian and Nicarchus.?
Tn other pieces, however, Aristophanes seems to have introduced
a fourth actor (as Sophocles has done in the Gidipus at Colonus) ;
the Wasps, for example, could hardly have been performed with-
out four actors.°

The use of masks and of a gay and striking costume was also

1 Anonym. de Comedia, p. xxxii. Comp. Aristot. Poet. 5.

3 The little daughters, who are sold as pigs, were perhaps puppets ; their koi, koi,
and the other sounds they utter, were probably spoken behind the scenes as a para-
scenion.

3 In the Wasps, Philocleon, Bdelycleon, and the two slaves Xanthias and Sosias,
are frequently on the stage at the same time as speaking persons.

12 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

common to tragedy and comedy ;. but the forms of the one
and the other were totally different. To conclude from the
hints furnished by Aristophanes, (for we have a great want of
special information on the subject,) his comic actors must have
been still more unlike the histriones of the new comedy, of
Plautus and Terence; of whom we know, from some very
valuable and instructive paintings in ancient manuscripts, that
they adopted, on the whole, the costume of everyday life, and
that the form and mode of their tunics and palliums were the
same as those of the actual personages whom they represented.
The costume of Aristophanes’ players must, on the other hand,
have resembled rather the garb of the farcical actors whom we
often see depicted on vases from Magna Grecia, namely, close-
fitting jackets and trousers striped with divers colours, which
remind us of the modern Harlequin; to which were added
great bellies and other disfigurations and appendages purposely
extravagant and indecorous, the grotesque form being, at the
most, but partially covered by a little mantle: then there were
masks, the features of which were exaggerated even to carica-
ture, yet so that particular persons, when such were brought
upon the stage, might at once be recognised. It is well known
that Aristophanes found great difficulty in inducing the mask-
makers (σκευοποιοὶ) to provide him with a likeness of the uni-
versally dreaded demagogue, Cleon, whom he introduces in his
Knights. The costume of the chorus in a comedy of Ari-
stophanes went farthest into the strange and fantastic. His
choruses of birds, wasps, clouds, &c., must not of course be
regarded as having consisted of birds, wasps, &c. actually repre-
sented, but, as is clear from numerous hints from the poet
himself, of a mixture of the human form with various ap-
pendages borrowed from the creatures we have mentioned ;* and
in this the poet allowed himself to give special prominence to
those parts of the mask which he was most concerned about,
and for which he had selected the mask: thus, for example, in

the Wasps, who are designed to represent the swarms of Athe-
nian judges, the sting was the chief attribute, as denoting the

1 Like the Atvo. with beasts’ heads (Alsop’s fables) in the picture described by
Philostratus. Imagines, I. 3.

ARRANGEMENT OF CHORUS. 13

style with which the judges used to mark down the number of
their division in the wax-tablets; these waspish judges were
introduced humming and buzzing up and down, now thrusting
out, and now drawing in an immense spit, which was attached
to them by way of a gigantic sting. Ancient poetry was suited,
by its vivid plastic representations, to create a comic effect by
the first sight of its comic chorus and its various motions on the
stage; as in a play of Aristophanes (the Τῆρας), some old men
come on the stage, and casting off their age in the form of a
serpent’s skin (which was also called ynpac), immediately after
conducted themselves in the most riotous and intemperate
manner.

§ 6. Comedy had much that was a eee its own in the
arrangement, the movements, and the songs of the chorus. The ©
authorities agree in stating the number of persons in the comic
chorus, at twenty-four: it is obvious that the complete chorus
of the tragic tetralogy, (consisting of forty-eight persons,) was
divided into two, and comedy kept its moiety undivided. Con-
sequently, comedy, though in other respects placed a good deal
below tragedy, had, nevertheless, the advantage of a more nu-
merous chorus by this, that comedies were always represented
separately, and never in tetralogies; whence it happened also,
that the comic poets were much less prolific in plays than the
tragic. This chorus, when it appeared in regular order, came
on in rows of six persons, and as it entered the stage sang the
parodos, which, however, was never so long or so artificially
constructed as it was in many tragedies. Still less considerable
were the stasima, which the chorus sings at the end of the scene
while the characters are changing their dress: they only serve
to finish off the separate scenes, without attempting to awaken
that collected thought and tranquillity of mind which the tragic
stasima were designed to produce. Deficiencies of this kind in
its choral songs, comedy compensated in a very peculiar manner
by its parabasis.

The parabasis, which was an address of the chorus in the
᾿ middle of the comedy, obviously originated in those phallic traits,

1 With all Aristophanes’ long career, only 54 were attributed to him, of which
four were said to be spurious—consequently, he only wrote half as many plays as
Sophocles. Compare above, chap. XXIV. § 2.

14 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

to which the whole entertainment was due; it was not ori-
ginally a constituent part of comedy, but improved and worked
out according to rules of art. The chorus, which up to that
point had kept its place between the thymele and the stage, and
had stood with its face to the stage, made an evolution, and
proceeded in files towards the theatre, in the narrower sense of
the word; that is, towards the place of the spectators. This
is the proper parabasis, which usually consisted of anapzestic
tetrameters, occasionally mixed up with other long verses; it
began with a short opening song, (in anapeestic or trochaic verse,)
which was called kommation, and ended with a very long and
protracted anapeestic system, which, from its trial of the breath,
was called pnigos (also makron). In this parabasis the poet
makes his chorus speak of his own poetical affairs, of the object
and end of his productions, of his services to the state, of his
relation to his rivals, and so forth. If the parabasis is com-
plete, in the wider sense of the word, this is followed by a
second piece, which is properly the main point, and to which
the anapeests only serve as an introduction. The chorus, namely,
sings a lyrical poem, generally a song of praise in honour of
some god, and then recites, in trochaic verses, (of which there
should, regularly, be sixteen,) some joking complaint, some re-
proach against the city, some witty sally against the people,
with more or less reference to the leading subject of the play:
this is called the epirrhema, or ‘ what is said in addition.” Both
pieces, the lyrical strophe and the epirrhema, are repeated anti-
strophically. It is clear, that the lyrical piece, with its anti-
strophe, arose from the phallic song; and the epirrhema, with
its antepirrhema, from the gibes with which the chorus of revel-
lers assailed the. first persons they met. It was natural, as the
parabasis came in the middle of the whole comedy, that, instead
of these jests directed against individuals, a conception more
significant, and more interesting to the public at large, should
be substituted for them; while the gibes against individuals,
suitable to the original nature of comedy, though without any
reference to the connexion of the piece, might be put in the
mouth of the chorus whenever occasion served.!

1 Such parts are found in the Acharnians, v. 1143-1174, in the Wasps, 1265-

DANCES. 15

As the parabasis completely interrupts the action of the
comic drama, it could only be introduced at some especial pause ;
we find that Aristophanes is fond of introducing it at the point
where the action, after all sorts of hindrances and delays, has
got so far that the crisis must ensue, and it must be determined
whether the end desired will be attained or not. Such, however,
is the laxity with which comedy treats all these forms, that the
parabasis may even be divided into two parts, and the anapzes-
tical introduction be separated from the choral song ;’ there may
even be a second parabasis, (but without the anapzstic march,)
in order to mark a second transition in the action of the piece.
Finally, the parabasis may be omitted altogether, as Aristo-
phanes, in his Lysistrata, (in which a double chorus, one part
consisting of women, the other of old men, sing so many sin-
gularly clever odes,) has entirely dispensed with. this address to
the public.*

§ 7. It is a sufficient definition of the comic style of dancing
to mention that it was the kordaz, i. 6. a species of dance which
no Athenian could practise sober and unmasked without incur-
ring a character for the greatest shamelessness.* Aristophanes
takes great credit to himself in his Clouds (which, with all its
burlesque scenes, strives after a nobler sort of comedy than his
other pieces) for omitting the kordaz in this play, and for having
laid aside some indecencies of costume.’ Everything shows
that comedy, in its outward appearance, had quite the character
of a farce, in which the sensual, or rather bestial, nature of
man was unreservedly brought forward, not by way of permission

1291, in the Birds, 1470-1493, 1553-1565, 1694-1705. We must not trouble our-
selves with seeking a connexion between these verses and other parts. In fact, it
needed but the slightest suggestion of the memory to occasion such sallies as these.

1 Thus in the Peace, and in the Frogs, where the first half of the parabasis has
coalesced with the parodos and the Iacchus-song, (of which see above, §2.). As
Tacchus has been already praised in this first part, the lyrical strophes of the second
part (v. 675 foll.) do not contain any invocation of gods, and such like, but are full
of sarcasms about the demagogues Cleopbon and Cleigenes. We find the same de-
viation, and from the same reasons, in the second parabasis of the Knights,

2 As in the Knights.

3 The parabasis is wanting in the Ecclesiazuse and the Plutus, for reasons which
are stated in chap. XXVIII. § rr.

4 Theophrast. Charact. 6. comp. Casaubon.

5 Aristophanes, Clouds, 537 foll.

16 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

only, but as a Jaw and rule. So much the more astonishing,
then, is the high spirituality, the moral worth, with which the
great comedians have been able to inspire this wild pastime,
without thereby subverting its fundamental characteristics. Nay,
if we compare with this old comedy the later conformation of
the middle and new comedy, with the latter of which we are
better acquainted, and which, with a more decent exterior,
nevertheless preaches a far laxer morality, and if we reflect on
the corresponding productions of modern literature, we shall
almost be induced to believe that the old rude comedy, which
concealed nothing, and was, in the representation of vulgar life,
itself vulgar and bestial, was better suited to an age which
meant well to morality and religion, and was more truly based
on piety, than the more refined comedy, as it is called, which
threw a veil ‘over everything, and, though it made vice ludicrous,
failed to render it detestable.’
To return, however, to the kordax, and to connect with it a
remark on the rhythmical structure of comedy; we learn acci-
_dentally that the trochaic metre was also called kordax,’ doubtless
because trochaic verses were generally sung as an accompaniment
to the kordax dances. The trochaic metre, which was invented
along with the iambic by the old iambographers, had a sort of
lightness and activity, but wanted the serious and impressive
character of the.iambus. It was especially appropriated to
cheerful dances ;* even the trochaic tetrameter, which was not
properly a lyrical metre, invited to motions like the dance.
The rhythmical structure of comedy was obviously for the most
part built upon the foundation of the old iambic poetry, and
was merely extended and enlarged much in the same way as the
Kolian and Doric lyrical poetry was adapted to tragedy, namely,
by lengthening the verses to systems, as they are called, by a
frequent repetition of the same rhythm. The asynartetic verses,
in particular, ὁ. e., loose combinations of rhythms of different

' Plutarch, in his comparison of Aristophanes and Menander, (of which an epitome
has been preserved,) expresses an entirely opposite opinion, but this is only a proof
how very often the later writers of antiquity mistook the form for the substance,

® Aristotle, quoted by Quintilian, ix. 4. Cicero Orat. 57.

8 Chap. XI. § 8, 22.

4 Aristophan. Peace, 324 foll.

LANGUAGE OF COMEDY. 17

kinds, such as dactylic and trochaic, which may be regarded as
forming a verse and also as different verses, belong only to the
iambic and comic poetry ; and in this, comedy, though it added
several new inventions, was merely continuing the work of
Archilochus.’

That the prevalent form of the dialogue should be the same
in tragedy and comedy, namely, the iambic trimeter, was natural,
notwithstanding the opposite character of the two kinds of poetry;
for this common organ of dramatic colloquy was capable of the
most various treatment, and was modified by the comic poets in
a manner most suitable to their object. The avoidance of spon-
dees, the congregation of short syllables, and the variety of the
czesuras, impart to the verse of comedy an extraordinary light-
ness and spirit, and the admixture of anapezests in all feet but the
last, opposed as this is to the fundamental form of the trimeter,
proves that the careless, voluble recitation of comedy treated
the long and short syllables with greater freedom than the tragic
art permitted. In order to distinguish the different styles and
tunes, comedy employed, besides the trimeter, a great variety of
metres, which we must suppose were also distinguished by different
sorts of gesticulation and delivery, such as the light trochaic te-
trameter so well suited to the dance, the lively iambic tetra-
meter, and the anapzestic tetrameter, flaunting along in comic
pathos, which had been used by Aristoxenus of Selinus, an old
Sicilian poet, who lived before Epicharmus.

In all these things comedy was just as inventive and refined
as tragedy. Aristophanes had the skill to convey by his rhythms
sometimes the tone of romping merriment, at others that of
vestal dignity ; and often in jest he would give to his verses and
his words such a pomp of sound that we lament he is not in
earnest. In reading his plays we are always impressed with
the finest concord between form and meaning, between the tone
of the speech and the character of the persons ; as, for example,
the old, hot-headed Acharnians admirably express their rude

1 For the sake of brevity, we merely refer to Hephestion, cap. xv. p. 83 foll,
Gaisf. and Terentianus, v. 2243.
Aristophanis ingens micat sollertia,
Qui sepe metris multiformibus novis
Archilochon arte est emulatus musica. Comp. above, chap. XI. § 8.

Wer. If, c

18 ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY.

vigour and boisterous impetuosity in the Cretic metres which
prevail in the choral songs of the piece.

But who could with a few words paint the peculiar instrument
which comedy had formed for itself from the language of the
day? It was based, on the whole, upon the common con-
versational language of the Athenians,—the Attic dialect, as it
was current in their colloquial intercourse; comedy expresses
this not only more purely than any other kind of poetry, but
even more so than the old Attic prose:' but this every day col-
loquial language is an extraordinarily flexible and rich instru-
ment, which not only contains in itself a fulness of the most

energetic, vivid, pregnant, and graceful forms of expression, but
can even accommodate itself to the different species of language
and style, the epic, the lyric, or the tragic ; and, by this means,
impart a special colouring to itself? But, most of all, it gained
a peculiar comic charm from its parodies of tragedy; here a
word, a form slightly altered, or pronounced with the peculiar
tragical accent, often sufficed to recal the recollection of a pa-—
thetic scene in some tragedy, and so to produce a ludicrous
contrast.

1 We only remind the reader that the connexions of consonants which distin-
guish Attic Greek from its mother dialect the Ionic, rr for oo, and ῥῥ for ps, occur
every where in Aristophanes, and even in the fragments of Cratinus, but are not
found in Thucydides any more than in the tragedians ; although even Pericles is
said to have used these un-Ionic forms on the bema. Eustathius on the /liad,
x. 385, p. 813. In other respects, too, the prose of Thucydides has far more epic
and Ionic gravity and unction than the poetry of Aristophanes,—even in particular
forms and expressions.

2 Plutarch very justly remarks, (Aristoph. et Menandri comp. 1,) that the diction
of Aristophanes contains all styles, from the tragic and pathetic (ὄγκος) to the
vulgarisms of farce, (σπερμολογία καὶ φλυαρία ;) but he is wrong in maintaining
that Aristophanes assigned these modes of speaking to his characters arbitrarily
and at random,

19

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ARISTOPHANES.

§ 1. Events of the life of Aristophanes ; the mode of his first appearance. ὃ 2. His
dramas: the Detaleis ; the Babylonians ; § 3. the Acharnians analyzed ; § 4. the
Knights ; ὃ 5. the Clouds ; ὃ 6. the Wasps; ὃ 7. the Peace; ὃ 8. the Birds;
§ 9. the Lysistrata ; Thesmophoriazuse ; ὃ το. the Frogs; ὃ 11. the Ecclesia-
zuse ; the second Plutus. Transition to the middle comedy.

§ 1. RISTOPHANES, the son of Philippus, was born at

Athens about Ol. 82. B.c. 452.’ We should know more
about the events of his life had the works of his rivals been pre-
served ; for it is natural to suppose that he was satirized in them,
much in the same way as he has attacked Cratinus and Eupolis
in his own comedies. As it is, we can only assert that he
passed over to Aigina with his family, together with other Attic
citizens, as a Cleruchus or colonist, when that island was
cleared of its old inhabitants, and that he became possessed of
some landed property there.’

The life of Aristophanes was so early devoted to the comic
stage, that we cannot mistake a strong natural tendency on his
part for this vocation. He. brought out his first: comedies at so
early an age that he was prevented (if not by law, at all events
by the conventions of society) from allowing them to appear
under his own name. It is to be observed that at Athens the
state gave itself no trouble to inquire who was really the author
of a drama: this was no subject for an official examination ;

1 Τὸ is clearly an exaggeration when the Schol. on the Frogs, 504, calls Aris-
tophanes σχεδὸν μειρακίσκος, i.e, about 18 years old, when he first came forward as
a dramatist. If such were the case, he would have been at his prime in his 20th
year, and would have ceased to compose at the aye of 56. In the pieces of Ari-
stophanes we discern indications of advanced age, and we therefore assume that
he was at least 25 years old at the time of his first appearance as a comic poet,
(B.C. 427.)

2See Aristoph. Acharn. 652; Vita Aristoph. p. 14; Kiister, and Theagenes
quoted by the Schol. on Plat. Apol. p. 93, 8, (p. 331, Bekk.) The Acharnians
was no doubt brought out by Callistratus ; but it is clear that the passage quoted
above referred the public to the poet himself, who was already well known to his
audience.

C2

20 ARISTOPHANES.

but the magistrate presiding over any Dionysian festival at
which the people were to be entertained with new dramas,’ gave
any chorus-teacher who offered to instruct the chorus and actors
for a new drama the authority for so doing, whenever he had
the necessary confidence in him. The comic poets, as well as
the tragic, were professedly chorus-teachers, (χοροδιδάσκαλοι,
or, as they specially called themselves, κωμῳδοδιδάσκαλοι;) and
in all official proceedings, such as assigning and bestowing the
prize, the state only inquired who had taught the chorus, and
thereby brought the new piece before the public. The comic
poets likewise retained for a longer period a custom, which
Sophocles was the first to discontinue on the tragic stage, that
the poet and chorus-teacher should also appear as the profa-
gonist or chief actor in his own piece. ‘This will explain what
Aristophanes says in the paradasis of the Clouds, that his muse
at first exposed her children, because, as a maiden, she dared
not acknowledge their birth, and that another damsel had taken
them up as her own; while the public, which could not be long
in recognizing the real author, had nobly brought up and edu-
cated the foundlings.? Aristophanes handed over his earlier
pieces, and some of the later ones too, either to Philonides or
to Callistratus, two chorus-teachers, with whom he was intimate,
and who were at the same time poets and actors; and these
persons produced them on the stage. The ancient grammarians
state that he transferred to Callistratus the political dramas,
and to Philonides those which related to private life.’ It was
these persons who applied for the chorus from the archon, who
produced the piece on the stage, and, if it was successful, re-
ceived the prize, of which we have several examples in the
didascalize ; in fact, everything was done as if they had been
the real authors, although the discriminating public could not
have failed to discover whether the real author of the piece was

1 At the great Dionysia, the first archon ; (ὁ ἄρχων as he was emphatically called ;)
at the Lenza, the basileus, or king archon.

* Compare the Knights, 513, where he says that many considered he had too
long abstained from χορὸν αἰτεῖν καθ᾽ ἑαυτόν. In the parabasis of the Wasps,
he compares himself to a ventriloquist who had before spoken through others.

8 So the anonym. de comedia apud Kiister. The Vita Aristophanis has the
contrary statement, but merely from an error, as is shown by various examples.

DRAMAS OF ARISTOPITANES. ya |

the newly-risen genius of Aristophanes or the well-known and
hacknied Callistratus.

§ 2. The ancients themselves did not know whether Philo-
nides or Callistratus brought out the Detaleis, the first of his
plays, which was performed in Ol. 88, 1. B.c. 427.’ The
Feasters, who formed the chorus in this piece, were conceived
as a company of revellers who had banqueted in a temple of
Hercules, (in whose worship eating and drinking bore a promi-
nent part,’?) and were engaged in witnessing a contest between
the old frugal and modest system of education and the frivolous
and talkative education of modern times, in the persons of two
young men, Temperate (σώφρων) and Profligate (καταπύγων).
Brother Profligate was represented, in a dialogue between him
and his aged father, as a despiser of Homer, as accurately
acquainted with legal expressions, (in order, of course, to em-
ploy them in pettifogging quibbles,) and as a zealous partizan of
the sophist Thrasymachus, and of Alcibiades the leader of the
frivolous youth of the day. In his riper years, Aristophanes
completed in the Clouds what he had attempted in this early
play.

The second play of Aristophanes was the Babylonians, and
was brought out Ol. 88, 2, B.c. 426, under the name of Callis-
tratus. This was the first piece in which Aristophanes adopted
the bold step of making the people themselves, in their pubhe
functions, and with their measures for ensuring the public good,
the subject of his comedy. He takes credit to himself, in the
parabasis of the Acharnians, for having detected the tricks
which the Athenians allowed foreigners, and especially foreign
ambassadors, to play upon them, by lending too willing an ear to
their flatteries and misrepresentations. He also maintains that
he has shown how democratic constitutions fall into the power
of demagogues; and that he has thereby gained a great name
with the allies, and, as he says, with humorous rhodomontade,
at the court of the Great King himself. The name of the piece

E Schol. on the Clouds, 531.

2 Miiller’s Dorians, II. 12. ὃ το.

3. Τὴ the important fragment preserved by Galen Ἱπποκράτους γχῶσσαι Proemium,
which has been recently freed from some corruptions which disfigured it. See
Dindorf Aristoph. Fragmenta. Deetal. 1.

~

22 ARISTOPHANES.

is obviously connected with this. We infer from the statements
of the old grammarians,' that the Babylonians who formed the
chorus, were represented as common labourers in the mills, the
lowest sort of slaves at Athens, who were branded, and were
forced to work in the mills by way of punishment ; and that they
passed themselves off as Babylonians, i. e., as ambassadors from
Babylon.

By this it was presumed that Babylon had revolted against
the great king, who was constantly at war with Athens; and
Aristophanes thought that the credulous Athenians might easily
be gulled into the belief of something of the kind. The play
would therefore be nearly related to that scene in the Achar-
nians, in which the supposed ambassadors of the Persian
monarch make their appearance, though the one cannot be con-
sidered as a mere repetition of the other. Of course, these
fictitious Babylonians were represented as a cheat practised
on the Athenian Demus by the demagogues, who were then
(after the death of Pericles) at the head of affairs; and Aristo-
phanes had made Cleon the chief butt for his witty attacks.
This comedy was performed at the splendid festival of the great
Dionysia, in the presence of the allies and a number of stran-
gers who were then at Athens; and we may see, from Cleon’s
earnest endeavours to revenge himself on the poet, how severely
the powerful demagogue smarted under the attack made upon
him. He dragged Callistratus’? before the council of the Five

1 See especially Hesychius on the verse: Σαμίων ὁ δῆμος ὡς πολυγράμματος: ‘these
are the words of one of the characters in Aristophanes,’ says Hesychius, ‘when he
sees the Babylonians from the mill, being astonished at their appearance, and not
knowing what to make of it.” The verse was clearly spoken by some one, who
was looking at the chorus without knowing what they were intended to represent,
and who mistook them for Samians branded by Pericles, so that πολυγράμματος
contains a direct allusion to the invention of letters by the Samians. That these
Babylonians were intended to represent mill-slaves appears to stand in connexion
with the fact that Hucrates, a demagogue powerful at that very time, possessed
mills. (Aristoph. Knights, 254.) 'The piece, however, seems to have been directed
chiefly against Cleon.

*? We say Cailistratus, because, as χοροδιδάσκαλος and protagonist in the Achar-
nians, he acted the part of Diczopolis, and because the public could not fail to
understand the words αὐτός τ᾽ ἐμαυτὸν ὑπὸ Κλέωνος ἃ παθον, ἐπίσταμαι, v. 377 foll.,
as spoken of the performer himself.. In the ποιητὴς of the parabasis in the Achar-
nians we do not hesitate to recognise Aristophanes, whose talents could not have
remained unknown to the public for three years.

‘

ANALYSIS OF THE ACHARNIANS. v3

Hundred, (which, as a supreme tribunal, had also the superin-
tendence of the festival amusements,) and overwhelmed him with
reproaches and threats. With regard to Aristophanes himself,
it is probable that Cleon made an indirect attempt to bring him
into danger by an indictment against him for assuming the rights
of a citizen without being entitled to them (γραφὴ ξενίας).
There is no doubt that the poet successfully repelled the charge,
and victoriously asserted his civic rights.’

§ 3. In the following year, (Ol. 88, 3. B.c. 425,) at the
Lena, Aristophanes brought out the Acharnians, the earliest
of his extant dramas. Compared with most of his plays, the
Acharnians is a harmless piece: its chief object is to depict the
earnest longing for a peaceful country life on the part of those
Athenians who took no pleasure in the babbling of the market-
place, and had been driven into the city against their will by the
military plans of Pericles. Along with this, a few lashes are
administered to the demagogues, who, like Cleon, had inflamed
the martial propensities of the people, and to the generals, who,
like Lamachus, had shown far too great a love for the war.
We have also in this play an early specimen of his literary
criticism, directed against Euripides, whose overwrought at-
tempts to move the feelings, and the vulgar shrewdness with
which he had invested the old heroes, were highly offensive to
our poet. In this play we have at once all the peculiar cha-
racteristics of the Aristophanic comedy ;—his bold and genial
originality, the lavish abundance of highly comic scenes with
which he has filled every part of his piece, the surprising and
striking delineation of character which expresses a great deal
with a few master-touches, the vivid and plastic power with
which the scenes are arranged, the ease with which he has dis-
posed of all difficulties of space and time. Indeed, the play
possesses its author’s peculiar characteristics in such perfection
and completeness, that it may be proper in this place to give such
an analysis of this, the oldest extant comedy, as may serve to
illustrate not merely the general ideas, which we have already

1 Schol. Acharn. 377. It was on this occasion, according to the author of the
Vita Aristophanis, that Aristophanes quoted that verse of Homer, (Odyss. 1. 216,)
οὐ γάρ πώ τις ἑὸν γόνον αὐτὸς ἀνέγνω.

94 ARISTOPHANES.

given, but also the whole plot and technical arrangement of the
drama. Ἷ

The stage in this play represents sometimes town and some-
times country, and was probably so arranged that both were
shown upon it at once. When the comedy begins, the stage
gives us a glimpse of the Pnyz, or place of public assembly ;
that is to say, the spectator saw the dema for the orator cut
out of the rock, and around it some seats and other objects
calculated to recal the recollection of the well-known place.
Here sits the worthy Diczopolis, a citizen of the old school,
grumbling about his fellow citizens, who do not come punctually
to the Pnyx, but lounge idly about the market-place, which is
seen from thence; for his own part, although he has no love for —
a town-life, with its bustle and gossip, he attends the assembly
regularly in order to speak for peace. On a sudden the Prytanes
come out of the council-house ; the people rush in; a well-born
Athenian, Amphitheus, who boasts of having been destined by
the gods to conclude a peace with Sparta, is dismissed with the
utmost contempt, in spite of the efforts of Diczeopolis on his
behalf; and then, to the great delight of the war party, ambas-
sadors are introduced, who have returned from Persia, and have
brought with them a Persian messenger, ‘ the Great King’s eye,’
with his retinue: this forms a fantastic procession, which, as
Aristophanes hints, is all a trick and imposture, got up by the
demagogues of the war party. Other ambassadors bring a
similar messenger from Sitalces, king of Thrace, on whose assist-
ance the Athenians of the day built a great deal, and drag before
the assembly a miserable rabble, under the name of picked
Odomantian troops, which the Athenians are to take into their
service for very high pay. Meanwhile Diczopolis, seeing that
he cannot turn affairs into another channel, has sent Amphi-
theus to Sparta on his own account; the messenger returns in
a few minutes with various treaties, (some for a longer, others
for a shorter time,) in the form of wine-jars, like those which
were used for pouring out libations on the conclusion of a treaty
of peace ; Diczopolis selects a thirty years’ truce by sea and
land, which does not smell of pitch and tar, like a short armis-
tice, in which there is only just time to calk the ships. All
these delightful scenes are possible only in a comedy like that

ANALYSIS OF THE ACHARNIANS. 95

of the Athenians, which has its outward form for the repre-
sentation of every relation, every function, and every character ;
which is able to sketch everything in bold colours by means of
grotesque speaking figures, and does not trouble itself with con-
fining the activity of these figures to the laws of reality and the
probabilities of actual life.’

The first dramatic complication which Aristophanes intro-
duces into his plot, arises from the chorus, which consists of
Acharnians, i.e., the inhabitants of a large village of Attica,
where the people gained a livelihood chiefly by charcoal-burn-
ing, the materials of which were supplied by the neighbouring
mountain-forests: they are represented as rude, robust old
fellows, hearts of oak, martial by their disposition, and especially
incensed against the Peloponnesians, who had destroyed all the
vineyards in their first invasion of Attica. These old Acharnians
at first appear in pursuit of Amphitheus, who, they hear, has gone
to Sparta to bring treaties of peace: in his stead, they fall in with
Diceopolis, who is engaged in celebrating the festival of the
country Dionysia, here represented as an abstract of every sort
of rustic merriment and jollity, from which the Athenians at
that time were debarred. The chorus no sooner learns from
the phallus-song of Diczopolis, that he is the person who has
sent for the treaties, than they fall upon him in the greatest
rage, refuse to hear a word from him, and are going to stone
him to death without the least compunction, when Diczopolis
seizes a charcoal-basket, and threatens to punish it as a hostage
for all that the Acharnians do to himself. The charcoal-basket,
which the Acharnians needed for their every-day occupations, is
so dear to their hearts that they are willing, for its sake, to
listen to Diczopolis; especially as he has promised to speak
with his head on a block, on condition that he shall be be-
headed at once if he fails in his defence. All this is amusing
enough in itself, but becomes additionally ludicrous when we
remember that the whole of Diczeopolis’s behaviour is an imita-

’ 1Jn all this, comedy does but follow in its own way the spirit of ancient art in
general, which went far beyond modern art in finding an outward expression for
every thought and feeling of the mind, but fell short of that art in keeping up an
appearance of consistency in the employment of these forms, as the laws of actual
life would have required.

26 ARISTOPHANES.

tion of one of the heroes of Euripides, the rhetorical and plain-
tive Telephus, who snatched the infant Orestes from his cradle
and threatened to put him to death, unless Agamemnon would
listen to him, and was exposed to the same danger when he
spoke before the Achzeans as Dicopolis is when he argues with
the Acharnians. Aristophanes pursues this parody still farther,
as it furnishes him with the means of exaggerating the situation
of Diczopolis in a very comic manner; Diceopolis applies to
Euripides himself, (who is shown to the spectators by means of
an eccyclema, in his garret, surrounded by masks and costumes,
such as he was fond of employing for his tragic heroes,) and
begs of him the most piteous of his dresses, upon which he
obtains the most deplorable of them all, that of Telephus. We
pass over other mockeries of Euripides, in which Aristophanes
indulges from pure wantonness, and turn to the following scene,
one of the chief scenes in the piece, in which Diczopolis, in
the character of a comic Telephus, and with his head over the
block, pleads for peace with the Spartans. It is obvious, that
however seriously Aristophanes embraced the cause of the peace-
party, he does not on this occasion speak one word in serious
earnest. He derives the whole Peloponnesian war from a bold
frolic on the part of some drunken young men, who had carried
off a harlot from Megara, in reprisal for which the Megarians
had seized on some of the attendants of Aspasia. As this
explanation is not satisfactory, and the chorus even summons
to its assistance the warlike Lamachus, who rushes from his
house in extravagant military costume,’ Diczeopolis is driven to
have recourse to argumenta ad hominem, and he impresses on the
old people who form the chorus, that they are obliged to serve
as common soldiers, while young braggadocios, like Lamachus,
made a pretty livelihood by serving as generals or ambassadors,
and so wasted the fat of the land. This produces its effect, and
the chorus shows an inclination to do justice to Diczeopolis.
This catastrophe of the piece is followed by the parabasis, in

1 Consequently, the house was also represented on the stage; probably the town
house of Diczopolis was in the middle, on the one side that of Euripides, on the other
that of Lamachus, On the left was the place which represented the Pnyx; on the
right some indication of a country house: this, however, occurs only in the scene
of the country Dionysia, all the rest takes place in the city.

ANALYSIS OF THE ACHARNIANS. 27

the first part of which the poet, with particular reference to his
last play, takes credit to himself for being an estimable friend
to the people; he says that he does not indeed spare them,
but that they need not fear, for that he will be just in his satire.’
The second part, however, keeps close to the thought which
Diczeopolis had awakened in the minds of the chorus ; they com-
plain bitterly of the assumption of their rights by the clever,
witty, and ready young men, from whom they could not defend
themselves, especially in the law-courts.

Thesecond part of the piece,after the catastrophe and parabasis,
is merely a description, overflowing with wit and humour, of the
blessings which peace has conferred on the sturdy Diczopolis.
At first he opens his free market, which is visited in succession
by a poor starving wretch from Megara, (the neighbouring
country to Attica, which, poorly gifted by nature, had suffered
in the most shocking manner from the Athenian blockade and
the yearly devastations of its territory,) and by a stout Boeotian
from the fertile land on the shore of the Copaic lake, which
was well known to the Athenians for its eels. For want of
other wares, the Megarian has dressed up his little daughters
like young pigs, and the honest Diczopolis is willing to buy
them as such, though he is strangely surprised by some of their
peculiarities ;—a purely ludicrous scene, which was based, per-
haps, on the popular jokes of the Athenians; a Megarian
would gladly sell his children as little pigs, if any one would
take them off his hands :—we could point out many jokes of
this kind in the popular life, as well of ancient as of modern
times. During this, the dealers are much troubled by syco-
phants, a race who lived by indictments, and were especially
active in hunting for violations of the customs’ laws ;? they
want to seize on the foreign goods as contraband, but Diczopolis
makes short work with them: one of the sycophants he drives
away from his market ; the other, the little Nicarchus, he binds

ly. 655, ἀλλ᾽ ὑμεῖς μή ποτε δείσηθ᾽ ὡς κωμῳδήσει τὰ δίκαια. When we find such
open professions as this, we may at least be certain that Aristophanes intended
to direct the sting of his comedy against that only which appeared to him to be
really bad.

2 The sycophants, no doubt, derived their names from a sort of φάσις, 1.6.
public information against those who injured the state in any of its pecuniary
interests.

28 ARISTOPHANES.

up in a bundle, and packs him on the back of the Beeotian, who
shows a desire to take him away asa laughable little monkey.

Now begins, on a sudden, the Athenian feast of the pitchers
(the Χόες). Lamachus' in vain sends to Diceopolis for some
of his purchases, in order that he may keep the feast merrily ;
the good citizen keeps every thing to himself, and the chorus,
which is now quite converted, admires the prudence of Diczo-
polis, and the happiness he has gained by it. In the midst of
his preparations for a sumptuous banquet, others beg for some
share of his peace; he returns a gruff answer to a countryman
whose cattle have been harried by the Beeotians ; but he behaves
a little more civilly to a bride who wants to keep her husband at
home. Meanwhile, various messages are brought ; to Lamachus,
that he must march against the Beotians, who are going to
make an inroad into Attica at the time of the feast of the.
Choes ; to Diczeopolis, that he must go to the priest of Bacchus,
in order to assist him in celebrating the feast of the Choes.
Aristophanes works out this contrast in a very amusing manner,
by making Diczopolis parody every word which Lamachus utters
as he is preparing for war, so as to transfer it to his own
festivities ; and when, after a short time which the chorus fills
up by a satirical song, Lamachus is brought back from the war
wounded, and supported by two servants, Diceeopolis meets him
in a happy state of intoxication, and leaning on two damsels of
easy virtue, and so celebrates his triumph over the wounded
warrior in a very conspicuous manner.

To say nothing of the pithy humonr of the style, and the
beautiful rhythms and happy turns of the choral songs, it must
be allowed that this series of scenes has been devised with
genial merriment from beginning to end, and that they must
have produced a highly comic effect, especially if the scenéry,
costumes, dances, and music were worthy of the conceptions
aud language of the poet. The piece, if correctly understood,
is nothing but a Bacchic revelry, full of farce and wantonness ;
for although the conception of it may rest upon a moral founda-

1 That Lamachus is only a representative of the warlike spirits is clear from his
name, Aa-yaxos: otherwise, Phormio, Demosthenes, Paches, and other Athenian
heroes might just as well have been substituted for him.

ANALYSIS OF THE KNIGHTS. 29

tion, yet the author is, throughout the piece, utterly devoid of
seriousness and sobriety, and in every representation, as well of
the victorious as of the defeated party, follows the impulses of
an unrestrained love of mirth. At most, Aristophanes expresses
his own sentiments in the parabasis: in the other parts of the
play we cannot safely recognize the opinions of the poet in the
deceitful mirror of his comedy.

§ 4. The following year (Ol. 88, 4. B.c. 424) is distinguished
in the history of comedy by the appearance of the Knights of
Aristophanes. It was the first piece which Aristophanes brought
out in his own name, and he was induced by peculiar circum-
stances to appear in it as an actor himself. This piece is en-
tirely directed against Cleon; not, like the Babylonians, and at
a later period the Wasps, against certain measures of his policy,
but against his entire proceedings and influence as a demagogue.
There is a certain degree of spirit in attacking, even under the
protection of Bacchic revelry, a popular leader who was mighty
by the very principle of his policy, viz. of advancing the material
interests and immediate advantage of the great mass of the people
at the sacrifice of everything else; and who had become still
more formidable by the system of terrorism with which he carried
out his views. This system consisted in throwing all the citizens
opposed to him under the suspicion of being concealed aris-
tocrats; in the indictments which he brought against his ene-
mies, and which his influence with the law courts enabled him
without difficulty to turn to his own advantage; and in the
terrible severity with which he urged the Athenians in the public
assembly and in the courts to put down all movements hostile
to the rule of the democracy, and of which his proposal to
massacre the Mitylenzans is the most striking example.
Besides, at the very time when Aristophanes composed the
Knighis, Cleon’s reputation had attained its highest pitch, for
fortune in her sport had realized his inconsiderate boast, that it
would be an easy matter for him to capture the Spartans in
Sphacteria; the triumph of having captured these formidable
warriors, for which the best generals had contended in vain, had
fallen, like an over-ripe fruit, into the lap of the unmilitary Cleon
(in the summer of the year 425). That it really was a bold
measure to attack the powerful demagogue at this time, may

30 ARISTOPHANES.

also be inferred from the statement that no one would make a
mask of Cleon for the poet, and still less appear in the character
of Cleon, so that Aristophanes was obliged to undertake the
part himself.

The Knights is by far the most violent and angry production
of the Aristophanic Muse ; that which has most of the bitterness
of Archilochus, and least of the harmless humour and riotous
merriment of the Dionysia. In this instance comedy almost
transgresses its proper limits; it is almost converted into an
arena for political champions fighting for life and death; the
most violent party animosity is combined with some obvious
traces of personal irritation, which is justified by the judicial
persecution of the author of the Babylonians. The piece pre-
sents a remarkable contrast to the Acharnians ; just as if the
poet wanted to show that a checkered variety of burlesque
scenes was not necessary to his comedy, and that he could pro-
duce the most powerful effect by the simplest means; and
doubtless, to an audience perfectly familiar with all the hints
and allusions of the comedian, the Knights must have pos-
sessed still greater interest than the Acharnians, though modern
readers, far removed from the times, have not been always able
to resist the feeling of tediousness produced by the prolix scenes
of the piece. The number of characters is small and unpre-
tending; the whole dramatis persone consist of an old master
with three slaves, (one of whom, a Paphlagonian, completely
governs his master,) and a sausage-seller. The old master,
however, is the Demus of Athens, the slaves are the Athenian
generals Nicias and Demosthenes, and the Paphlagonian is
Cleon : the sausage-seller alone is a fiction of the poet’s,—a rude,
uneducated, impudent fellow, from the dregs of the people,
who is set up against Cleon in order that he may, by his
audacity, bawl down Cleon’s impudence, and so drive the
formidable demagogue out of the field in the only way that is
possible. Even the chorus has nothing imaginary about it, but
consists of the Knights of the State,’ i.e. of citizens who, ac-

1 Hardly of actual knights, so that in this case reality and the drama were one
and the same. That no phyle, but the state paid the expenses of this chorus (it
we are so to explain δημοσίᾳ in the didascalia of the piece: see the examples in

ANALYSIS OF THE KNIGHTS. 31

cording to Solon’s classification, which still subsisted, paid taxes
according to the rating of a knight’s property, and most of
whom at the same time still served as cavalry in time of
war:' being the most numerous portion of the wealthier and
better educated class, they could not fail to have a decided
antipathy to Cleon, who had put himself at the head of the
mechanics and poorer people. We see that in this piece Aris-
tophanes lays all the stress on the political tendency, and con-
siders the comic plot rather as a form and dress than as the
body and primary part of his play. The allegory, which is
obviously chosen only to cover the sharpness of the attack, is
cast over it only like a thin veil; according to his own pleasure,
the poet speaks of the affairs of the Demus sometimes as matters
of family arrangement, sometimes as public transactions.

The whole piece has the form of a contest. The sausage-
seller (in whom an oracle, which has been stolen from the
Paphlagonian while he was sleeping, recognises his victorious
opponent) first measures his strength against him in a display
of impudence and rascality, by which the poet assumes that of
the qualities requisite to the demagogue these are the most
essential. The sausage-seller narrates that having, while a
boy, stolen a piece of meat and boldly denied the theft, a
statesman had predicted that the city would one day trust itself
to his guidance. After the parabasis, the contest begins afresh ;
the rivals, who had in the meantime endeavoured to recommend
themselves to the council, come before Demus himself, who
takes his seat on the Pnyx, and sue for the favour of the childish
old man. Combined with serious reproaches directed against
Cleon’s whole system of policy, we have a number of joking
contrivances, as when the sausage-seller places a cushion under
the Demus, in order that he may not gall that which sat by the
oar at Salamis.” The contest at last turns upon the oracles, to
which Cleon used to appeal in his public speeches (and we know

Boéckh’s Public Economy of Athens, book iii. § 22, at the end,) is no ground for the
former inference.

1 That Aristophanes considers the knights as a class is pretty clear from their
known political tendency ; as part of the Athenian army, he often describes them as
sturdy young men, fond of horsemanship, and dressed in grand military costume.

2 ἵνα μὴ τρίβῃς τὴν ἐν Σαλαμῖνι. ν. 785.

32 ARISTOPHANES.

from Thucydides’ how much the people were influenced through-
out the Peloponnesian war by the oracles and predictions attri-
buted to the ancient prophets); in this. department, too, the
sausage-seller outbids his rival by producing announcements of
the greatest comfort to the Demus, and ruin to his opponent.
As a merry supplement to these long-spun transactions, we have
a scene which must have been highly entertaining to eye and
ear alike: the Paphlagonian and the sausage-seller sit down as
eating-house keepers (κάπηλοι) at two tables, on which a number
of hampers and eatables are set out, and bring one article after
the other to the Demus with ludicrous recommendations of their
excellences ;* in this, too, the sausage-seller of course pays his
court to the Demus more successfully than his rival. After a
second parabasis we see the Demus—whom the sausage-seller
has restored to youth by boiling him in his kettle, as Medea did
Aison—in youthful beauty, but attired in the old-fashioned
splendid costume, shining with peace and contentment, and in his
new state of mind heartily ashamed of his former absurdities.

§ 5. In the following year we find Aristophanes (after a fresh
suit® in which Cleon had involved him) bringing out the Clouds,
and so entering upon an entirely new field of comedy. He had
himself made up his mind to take a new and peculiar flight
with this piece. The public, and the judges, however, deter-
mined otherwise; it was not Aristophanes but the aged Cra-
tinus who obtained the first prize. The young poet, who had
believed himself secure against such a slight, uttered some warm
reproaches against the public in his next play ; he was induced,
however, by this decision to revise his piece, and it is this
rifaccimento (which deviates considerably from the original
form) that has come down to us.’

1 Thucyd. ii. 54. viii. 1.

2 The two eating-houses are represented by an eccyclema, as is clear cam the
conclusion of the scene.

ὃ. See the Wasps, v. 1284. According to the Vita Aristoph. the poet had to
stand three suits from Cleon touching his rights as a citizen.

4 The first Clouds had, according to a definite tradition, a different parabasis; it
wanted the contest of the δίκαιος and ἄδικος λόγος, and the burning of the school at
the end. Itis also probable, from Diog. Laért. ii. 18, (notwithstanding all the
confusions which he has made,) that in the first Clouds, Socrates was brought into
connexion with Euripides, and was declared to have had a share in the tragedies of
the latter.

ANALYSIS OF THE CLOUDS. oo

There is hardly any work of antiquity which it is so difficult
to estimate as the Clouds of Aristophanes. Was Socrates really,
perhaps only in the earlier part of his career, the fantastic
dreamer and sceptical sophist which this piece makes him?
And if it is certain that he was not, is not Aristophanes a
common slanderer, a buffoon, who, in the vagaries of his
humour, presumes to attack and revile even what is purest
and noblest? Where remains his solemn promise never to
make what was right the object of his comic satire ?

If there be any way of justifying the character of Aristo-
phanes, as it appears to us in all his dramas, even in this hostile
encounter with the noblest of philosophers, we must not attempt,
as some modern writers have done, to convert Aristophanes into
a profound philosopher, opposed to Socrates; but we must be
content to recognise in him, even on this occasion, the vigilant
patriot, the well-meaning citizen of Athens, whose object it is
by all the means in his power to promote the interests of his
native country so far as he is capable of understanding them.

As the piece in general is directed against the new system
of education, we must first of all explain its nature and ten-
dency. Up to the time of the Persian war, the school-education
of the Greeks was limited to a very few subjects. From his
seventh year, the boy was sent to schools in which he learned
reading and writing, to play on the lute and sing, and the usual
routine of gymnastic exercises. In these schools it was cus-
tomary to impress upon the youthful mind, in addition to these
acquirements, the works of the poets, especially Homer, as the
foundation of all Greek training, the religious and moral songs ~
of the lyric poets, and a modest and decent behaviour. This
instruction ceased when the youth was approaching to manhood ;
then the only means of gaining instruction was intercourse with
older men, listening to what was said in the market-place, where
the Greeks spent a large portion of the day, taking a part in
public life, the poetic contests, which were connected with the
religious festivals, and made generally known so many works of
genius ; and, as far as bodily training was concerned, frequenting
the gymnasia kept up at the public expense. Such was the

1 és γραμματιστοῦ, és κιθαριστοῦ, és παιδοτρίβου.

Vou. IT. D

34 ARISTOPHANES.

method of education up to the Persian war; and no effect was
produced upon it by the more ancient systems of philosophy,
any more than by the historical writings of the period, for no
one ever thought of seeking the elements of a regular education
‘from Heraclitus or Pythagoras, but whoever applied himself to
them did so for his life. With the Persian war, however,
according to an important observation of Aristotle,’ an entirely
new striving after knowledge and education developed itself
among the Greeks; and subjects of instruction were established,
which soon exercised an important influence on the whole spirit
and character of the nation. The art of speaking, which had
hitherto afforded exercise only to practical life and its avocations,
now became a subject of school-training, in connexion with
various branches of knowledge, and with ideas and views of
various kinds, such as seemed suitable to the design of guiding
and ruling men by eloquence. All this taken together, con-
stituted the lessons of the Sophists, which we shall contemplate
more nearly hereafter; and which produced more important
effects on the education and morals of the Greeks than any-
thing else at that time. That the very principles of the Sophists
must have irritated an Athenian with the views and feelings of
Aristophanes, and have at once produced a spirit of opposition,
is sufficiently obvious: the new art of rhetoric, always eager for
advantages, and especially when transferred to the dangerous
ground of the Athenian democracy and the popular law-courts,
could not fail to be regarded by Aristophanes as a perilous in-
strument in the hands of ambitious and selfish demagogues ; he
saw with a glance how the very foundations of the old morality
upon which the weal of Athens appeared to him to rest, must
be sapped and rooted up by a stream of oratory which had the
skill to turn everything to its own advantage. Accordingly, he
makes repeated attacks on the whole race of the artificial orators
and sceptical reasoners, and it is with them that he is principally
concerned in the Clouds.

The real object of this piece is stated by the poet himself in

the parabasis to the Wasps, which was composed in the following —

year: he says that he had attacked the fiend which, like a night- _

1 Aristot, Polit. viii. 6.

— Δ. a

ANALYSIS OF THE CLOUDS. 35

mare, plagued fathers and grandfathers by night, besetting in-
experienced and harmless people with all sorts of pleadings and
pettifogging tricks.’ It is obvious that it is not the teachers of
rhetoric who are alluded to here, but the young men who abused
the facility of speaking which they had acquired in the schools
by turning it to the ruin of their fellow citizens. The whole
plan of the drama depends upon this: an old Athenian, who is
sore pressed by debts and duns, first labours to acquire a
knowledge of the tricks and stratagems of the new rhetoric, and
finding that he is too stiff and awkward for it, sends to this
school his youthful son, who has hitherto spent his life in the
ordinary avocations of a well-born cavalier. The consequence
is, that his son, being initiated into the new scepticism, turns it
against his own father, and not only beats him, but proves that
he has done so justly. The error of Aristophanes in identifying
the school of Socrates with that of the new-fangled rhetoric must
have arisen from his putting Socrates on the same footing with
sophists like Protagoras and Gorgias, and then preferring to
make his fellow-citizen the butt of his witticisms, rather than
his foreign colleagues, who paid only short visits to Athens. It
cannot be denied that Aristophanes was mistaken. It must
indeed be allowed that Socrates, in the earlier part of his career,
had not advanced with that security with which we see him in-
vested in the writings of Xenophon and Plato; that he still took
more part in the speculations of the Tonian philosophers with
regard to the universe,? than he did at a later period; that
certain wild elements were still mixed up in his theory, and not
yet purged out of it by the Socratic dialectic: still it is quite
incenceivable that Socrates should ever have kept a school of
rhetoric (and this is the real question), in which instruction was
given, as in those of the Sophists, how to make the worse
appear the better reason.* But even this misrepresentation on
the part of Aristophanes may have been undesigned: we see

1 Compare, by way of explanation, also Acharnians, 713. Birds, 1347. Frogs,
147.

3 τὰ μετέωρα.

3 The ἥττων or ἄδικος, and the κρείττων or δίκαιος λόγος. Aristophanes makes the
former manner of speaking the representative of the assuming and arrogant youth,
and the latter of the old respectable education, and personifies them both.

D 2

36 ARISTOPHANES.

from passages of his later comedies,’ that he actually regarded
Socrates as a rhetorician and declaimer. He was probably de-
ceived by appearances into the belief that the dialectic of
Socrates, the art of investigating the truth, was the same as
the sophistry which aped it, and which was but the art of pro-
ducing a deceitful resemblance of the truth. It is, no doubt, a
serious reproach to Aristophanes that he did not take the
trouble to distinguish more accurately between the two: but
how often it happens that men, with the ~ best intentions, con-
demn arbitrarily and in the lump those tendencies and exertions
which they dislike or cannot appreciate.

The whole play of the Clouds is full of ingenious ideas, such
as the chorus of Clouds itself, which Socrates invokes, and which
represents appropriately the light, airy, and fleeting nature οὗ
the new philosophy.” A number of popular jokes, such as
generally attach themselves to the learned class, and banter the
supposed subtilties and refinements of philosophy, are here heaped
on the school of Socrates, and often delivered in a very comic
manner. The worthy Strepsiades, whose homebred under-
standing and mother-wit are quite overwhelmed with astonish-
ment at the subtle tricks of the school-philosophers, until at last
his own experience teaches him to form a different judgment, is
from the beginning to the end of the piece a most amusing cha-
racter, Notwithstanding all this, however, the piece cannot
overcome the defect arising from the oblique views on which it
is based, and the superficial manner in which the philosophy of
Socrates is treated,—at least not in the eyes of any one who is
unable to surrender himself to the delusion under which Aris-
tophanes appears to have laboured.

§ 6. The following year (Ol. 89, 2. B.c. 422) brought the

1 See Aristoph. Frogs, 1491. Birds, 1555. Eupolis had given a more correct —
picture of Socrates, at least in regard to his outward appearance. Bergk de rel.
com. Attica, p. 353. :

? That this chorus loses its special character towards the end of the piece, —
and even preaches reverence of the gods, is a point of resemblance between it and —
the choruses in the Acharnians and the Wasps, who at least act rather according
to the general character of the Greek chorus, which was on the whole the same —
for tragedy and comedy, than according to the particular part which has been
assigned to them.

ANALYSIS OF THE WASPS. ad

Wasps of Aristophanes on the stage. The Wasps is so con-
nected with the Clouds, that it is impossible to mistake a
similarity of design in the development of certain thoughts in
each. The Clouds, especially in its original form, was directed
against the young Athenians, who, as wrangling tricksters,
vexed the simple inoffensive citizens of Athens by bringing them
against their will into the law-courts. The Wasps is aimed at
the old Athenians, who took their seats day after day in great
masses as judges, and being compensated for their loss of time
by the judicial fees established by Pericles, gave themselves up
entirely to the decision of the causes, which had become in-
finitely multiplied by the obligation on the allies to try their
suits at Athens, and by the party spirit in the State itself:
whereby these old people had acquired far too surly and snarling
a spirit, to the great damage of the accused. There are two
persons opposed to one another in this piece; the old Philocleon,
who has given up the management of his affairs to his son, and
devoted himself entirely to his office of judge (in consequence
of which he pays the profoundest respect to Cleon, the patron
of the popular courts) ; and his son Bdelycleon, who has a horror
of Cleon and of the severity of the courts in general. It is
very remarkable how entirely the course of the action between
these two characters corresponds to that in the Clouds, so that
we can hardly mistake the intention of Aristophanes to make
one piece the counterpart of the other. The irony of fate,
which the aged Strepsiades experiences, when that which had
been the greatest object of his wishes, namely, to have his son
thoroughly imbued with the rhetorical fluency of the Sophists,
soon turns out to be the greatest misfortune to him,—is pre-
cisely the same with the irony of which the young Bdelycleon is
the object in the Wasps; for, after having directed all his
efforts towards curing his father of his mania for the profession
of judge, and having actually succeeded in doing so, (partly by
establishing a private dicasterion at home, and partly by recom-
mending to him the charms of a fashionable luxurious life, such
as the young Athenians of rank were attached to,) he soon
bitterly repents of the metamorphosis which he has effected,
since the old man, by a strange mixture of his old-fashioned
rude manners with the luxury of the day, allows his dissolute-

38 ARISTOPHANES.

ness to carry him much farther than Bdelycleon had either ex-
pected or desired.

The Wasps is undoubtedly one of the most perfect of the
plays of Aristophanes.' We have already remarked upon the
happy invention of the masks of the chorus.’ The same spirit
of amusing novelty pervades the whole piece. The most farcical
scene is the first between two dogs, which Bdelycleon sets on
foot for the gratification of his father, and in which not only is
the whole judicial system of the Athenians parodied in a ludi-
crous manner, but also a particular law-suit between the dema-
gogue Cleon and the general Laches appears in a comic contrast,
which must have forced a laugh from the gravest of the
spectators.

§ 7. We have still a fifth comedy, the Peace, which is con-
nected with the hitherto unbroken series ; it is established by a
didascalia, which has been recently brought to light, that it was
produced at the great Dionysia in Ol. 89, 3. B.c. 421. Accord-
ingly, this play made its appearance on the stage shortly
before the peace of Nicias, which concluded the first part of
the Peloponnesian war, and, as was then fully believed, was
destined to put a final stop to this destructive contest among
the Greek states.

The subject of the Peace is essentially the same as that of
the Acharnians, except that, in the latter, peace is represented
as the wish of an individual only, in the former as wished for
by all. In the Acharnians, the chorus is opposed to peace; in
the Peace, it is composed of countrymen of Attica, and all parts
of Greece, who are full of a longing desire for peace. It must,
however, be allowed, that in dramatic interest the Acharnians
far excels the Peace, which is greatly wanting in the unity of
a strong comic action. It must, no doubt, have been highly
amusing to see how Trygzus ascends to heaven on the back of
an entirely new sort of Pegasus—a dung beetle,—and there,

1 We cannot by any means accept A. W. von Schlegel’s judgment, that this
play is inferior to the other comedies of Aristophanes, and we entirely approve
of the warm apology by Mr. Mitchell, in his edition of the Wasps, 1835, the
object of which has unfortunately prevented the editor from giving the comedy in
its full proportions,

2 Chap. XXVII. § 5.

ANALYSIS OF THE BIRDS. 39

amidst all kinds of dangers, in spite of the rage of the demon
of war, carries off the goddess Peace, with her fair com-
panions, Harvesthome and Mayday:’ but the sacrifice on account
of the peace, and the preparations for the marriage of Trygzeus
with Harvesthome, are split up into a number of separate
scenes, without any direct progress of the action, and without
any great vigour of comic imagination. It is also too obvious,
that Aristophanes endeavours to diminish the tediousness of
these scenes by some of those loose jokes which never failed to
produce their effect on the common people of Athens; and it
must be allowed, in general, that the poet often expresses better
rules in respect to his rivals than he has observed in his own
pieces.”

§ 8. There is now a gap of some years in the hitherto un-
broken chain of Aristophanic comedies; but our loss is fully
compensated by the Birds, which was brought out in Ol. ΟἹ,
2. B.C. 414. If the Acharnians is a specimen of the youthful
vigour of Aristophanes, it appears in the Birds displayed in all
its splendour, and with a style, in which a proud flight of
imagination is united with the coarsest jocularity and most
genial humour.

The Birds belongs to a period when the power and dominion
of Athens had attained to an extent and grandeur which can only
_be compared to the time about Ol. 81, 1. B.c. 456, before the
military power of Athens was overthrown in Egypt. Athens
had, by the very favourable peace of Nicias, strengthened her
authority on the sea and in the coasts of Asia Minor; had
shaken the policy of the Peloponnese by skilful intrigues; had
brought her revenues to the highest point they ever attained ;
and finally had formed the plan of extending her authority by
sea and on the coasts, over the western part of the Mediterranean,
by the expedition to Sicily, which had commenced under the most
favourable auspices. The disposition of the Athenians at this
period is known to us from Thucydides: they allowed their de-

1So we venture to translate ’Orwpa and Θεωρία.

2 Tt should’ be added, that according: to the old grammarians Eratosthenes and
Crates, there were two plays by Aristophanes with this title, though there is no
indication that the one which has come down to us is not that which appeared in
the year 421.

40 ARISTOPHANES.

magogues and soothsayers to conjure up before them the most
brilliant visionary prospects; henceforth nothing appeared un-
attainable ; people gave themselves up, in general, to the intoxi-
cation of extravagant hopes. The hero of the day was Alci-
biades, with his frivolity, his presumption, and that union of
a calculating understanding with a bold, unfettered imagination,
for which he was so distinguished ; and even when he was lost
- to Athens by the unfortunate prosecution of the Hermocopide,
the disposition which he had excited still survived for a con-
siderable time.

It was at this time that Aristophanes composed his Birds.
In order to comprehend this comedy in its connexion with the
events of the day, and, on the other hand, not to attribute to
it more than it really contains, it is especially necessary to take
a rigorous and exact view of the action of the piece. Two
Athenians, Peistheterus and Euelpides, (whom we may call
Agitator and Hopegood,) are sick and tired of the restless life
at Athens, and the number of law-suits there, and have wan-
dered out into the wide world in search of Hoopoo, an old
mythological kinsman of the Athenians.’ They soon find him
in a rocky desert, where the whole host of birds assemble at
the call of Hoopoo: for some time they are disposed to treat
the two strangers of human race as national enemies; but are
at last induced, on the recommendation of Hoopoo, to give
them a hearing. Upon this, Agitator lays before them his
grand ideas about the primeval sovereignty of the birds, the
important rights and privileges they have lost, and how they
ought to win them all back again by founding a great city for
the whole race of birds: and this would remind the spectators
of the plan of centralization (συνοικισμός), which the Athenian
statesmen of the day often employed for the establishment of
democracy, even in the Peloponnese. While Agitator under-
takes all the solemnities which belonged to the foundation of a
Greek city, and drives away the crowd, which is soon collected,
of priests, writers of hymns, prophets, land-surveyors, inspectors-
general, and legislators—scenes full of satirical reflexion on the

1 Tt is said to have been, in fact, the Thracian king Tereus, who had married

Pandion’s daughter Procne, and was ‘turned into a hoopoo, his wife being meta-
morphosed into a nightingale.

ANALYSIS OF THE BIRDS. 41

conduct of the Athenians in their colonies and in allied states,—
Hopegood superintends the building of this castle-in-the-air,
the Cloudcuckootown (Νεφελοκοκκυγία), and shortly after a
messenger makes his appearance with a most amusing descrip-
tion of the way in which the great fabric was constructed by
the labours of the different species of birds. Agitator treats
this description as a lie;’ and the spectators are also sensible
that Cloudeuckootown exists only in imagination, since Iris, the
messenger of the gods, flies past without having perceived, on
her way from heaven to earth, the faintest trace of the great
blockading fortress.? The affair creates all the more sensation
among men on this account, and a number of swaggerers come
to get their share in the promised distribution of wings, without
Agitator being able to make any use of those new citizens for
his city. As, however, men leave off sacrificing to the gods,
and pay honour to the birds only, the gods themselves are
obliged to enter into the imposture, and bear a part in the
absurdities which result from it. An agreement is made in
which Zeus himself gives up his sovereignty to Agitator ; this is
brought about by a contrivance of Agitator; he has the skill to
win over Hercules, who has come as an ambassador from the
gods, with the savoury smell of certain birds, whom he has
arrested as aristocrats, and is roasting for his dinner. At the
end of the comedy Agitator appears with Sovereignty, (Βασίλεια,)
splendidly attired as his bride, brandishing the thunder-bolts of
Zeus, and in a triumphal hymeneal procession, accompanied by
the whole tribe of birds.

In this short sketch we have purposely omitted all the
subordinate parts, amusing and brilliant as they are, in order
to make sure of obtaining a correct view of the whole piece.
People have often overlooked the general scope of the play, and
have sought for a signification in the details, which the plan of
the whole would not allow. It is impossible that Athens can
have been intended under Cloudcuckootown, especially as this

ly. 1167. ἴσα γὰρ ἀληθῶς φαίνεταί μοι ψεύδεσιν.

2 Of course we see nothing of the new city on the stage, which throughout the
piece represents a rocky place with trees about it, and with the house of the Epops
in the centre, which at the end of the play is converted into the kitchen where the
birds are roasted.

42 ARISTOPHANES.

city of the birds is treated as a mere imagination: moreover,
the birds are real birds throughout the play, and if Aristophanes
had intended to. represent his countrymen under these masks,
the characteristics of the Athenians would have been shown in
them in a very different way.’ Besides, it is very difficult to
believe that Agitator and Hopegood were intended to re-
present any Athenian statesmen in particular; the chief
rulers of the people at the time could not possibly have shown
themselves diametrically opposed, as Agitator does, to the
judicial and legislative system, and to the sycophancy of the
Athenians. But according to the poet’s express declaration,
they are Athenians, the genuine offspring of Athens, and it is
clear, that in these two characters, he intended to give two per-
fect specimens of the Athenians of the day; the one is an
intriguing projector, a restless, inventive genius, who knows how
to give a plausible appearance to the most irrational schemes ;
the other is an honest credulous fool, who enters into the follies
of his companion with the utmost simplicity.” Consequently,
the whole piece is a satire on Athenian frivolity and credulity,
on that building of castles in the air, and that dreaming ex-
pectation of a life of luxury and ease, to which the Athenian
people gave themselves up in the mass: but the satire is so
general, there is so little of anger and bitterness, so much of
fantastic humour in it, that no comedy could make a more
agreeable and harmless impression. We must, in this, dissent
entirely from the opinion of the Athenian judges, who, though
they crowned the Knights, awarded only the second prize to the
Birds ; it seems that they were better able to appreciate the
force of a violent personal attack than the creative fulness of
comic originality.

§ 9. We have two plays of Aristophanes which came out in
Ol. 92, 1. B.c. 411 (if our chronological data are correct), the

1 That several points applicable to Athens occur in the Cloudeuckootown (the
Acropolis, with the worship of Minerva Polias, the Pelasgian wall, &c.) proves
nothing but this, that the Athenians, who plan the city, made use of names
common at home, as was always the custom in colonies.

* We may remark that Euelpides only remains on the stage till the plan of

Nephelococcygia is formed: after that, the poet has no further employment for
him,

ANALYSIS OF THE THESMOPHORIAZUS.%. 43

Lysistrata and the Thesmophoriazuse. <A didascalia, which has
come down to us, assigns the Lysistrata to this year, in which,
after the unfortunate issue of the Sicilian expedition, the occu-
pation of Deceleia by the Spartans, and their subsidiary treaty
with the king of Persia, the war began to press heavily upon
the Athenians. At the same time the constitution of Athens
had fallen into a fluctuating state, which ended in an oligarchy;
a board of commissioners (πρύβουλοι), consisting of men of the
greatest rank and consideration, superintended all the affairs of
state ; and, a few months after the representation of the Thes-
mophoriazuse began the rule of the Four Hundred. Aristo-
phanes, who had all along been attached to the peace-party,
which consisted of the thriving landed proprietors, now gave
himself up entirely to his longing for peace, as if all civic rule
and harmony in the state must necessarily be restored by a
cessation from war. In the Lysistrata this longing for peace is
exhibited in a farcical form, which is almost without a parallel
for extravagant indecency ; the women are represented as com-
pelling their husbands to come to terms, by refusing them the
exercise of their marital rights; but the care with which he
abstains from any direct political satire shows how fluctuating .
all relations were at that time, and how little Aristophanes could
tell whither to turn himself with the vigour of a man who has
chosen his party.

In the Thesmophoriazuse, nearly contemporary with the
Lysistrata,’ Aristophanes keeps still further aloof from politics,

1 The date assigned to the Thesmophoriazuse, Ol. 92, 1. B.C. 411, rests partly
on its relation to the Andromeda of Euripides, (see chap. XXV. § 17, note,)
which was a year older, and which, from its relation to the Frogs, (Schol. Aristoph.
Frogs, 53,) is placed in Ol. ΟἹ, 4. Β.6. 412. No doubt the expression ὀγδόῳ ἔτει
would also allow us to place the Andromeda in 413; and therefore, the Thesmo-
phoriazuse in 412; but this is opposed by the clear mention of the defeat of
Charminus in a sea-fight, (Thesmoph. 804 ;) which falls, according to Thucyd. viii.
41, in the very beginning of 411. Without setting aside the Schol. Frogs, 53, and
some other corresponding notices in the Ravenna scholia on the Thesmophoriazuse,
we cannot bring down this comedy to the year 410: consequently, the passage in v.
808 about the deposed councillors, cannot refer to the expulsion of the Five Hundred
by the oligarchy of the Four Hundred (Thucyd. viii. 69,) which did not take place
till after the Dionysia of the year 411; but to the circumstance that the βουλευταὶ
of the year 412, Ol. g1, 4, were obliged to give up a considerable part of their
functions to the board of πρόβουλοι (Thucyd, viii. 1).

44 ARISTOPHANES.

and plunges into literary criticism (such as before only served
him fora collateral ornament), which he helps out with a com-
plete apparatus of indecent jokes. Euripides passed for a
woman-hater at Athens: but without any reason ; for, in his
tragedies, the charming, susceptible mind of woman is as often
the motive of good as of bad actions. General opinion, how-
ever, had stamped him as a misogynist. Accordingly, the piece
turns on the fiction that the women had resolved at the feast of
the Thesmophoria, when they were quite alone, to take vyen-—
geance on Euripides, and punish him with death; and that
Euripides was desirous of getting some one whom he might pass
off for a woman, and send as such into thisassembly. The first
person who occurs to his mind, the delicate, effeminate Agathon
—an excellent opportunity for travestying Agathon’s manner—
will not undertake the business, and only furnishes the costume,
in which the aged Mnesilochus, the father-in-law and friend of
Euripides, is dressed up as a woman. Mnesilochus conducts his
friend’s cause with great vigour; but he is denounced, his sex
is discovered, and, on the complaint of the women, he is com-
mitted to the custody of a Scythian police-slave, until Euripides,
having in vain endeavoured, in the guise of a tragic Menelaus
and Perseus, to carry off this new Helen and Andromeda,
entices the Scythian from his watch over Mnesilochus by an
artifice of a grosser and more material kind. The chief joke
in the whole piece is that Aristophanes, though he pretends to
punish Euripides for his calumnies against women, is much
more severe upon the fair sex than Euripides had ever been.

§ 10. The literary criticism, which seems to have been the
principal employment of Aristophanes during the last gloomy
years of the Peloponnesian war, came out in its most perfect
form in the Frogs, which was acted Ol. 93, 3. B.c. 405, and is
one of the most masterly productions which the muse of comedy
has ever conceded to her favourites. The idea, on which the
whole is built, is beautiful and grand. Dionysus, the god of the
Attic stage, here represented as a young Athenian fop, who
gives himself out as a connoisseur of tragedies, is much dis-
tressed at the great deficiency of tragic poets after the deaths of
Euripides and Sophocles, and is resolved to go and bring up a

ANALYSIS OF THE FROGS. 45

tragedian from the other world,—if possible, Euripides.’ He
gets Charon to ferry him over the pool which forms the
boundary of the infernal regions (where he is obliged to pull
himself to the merry croaking of the marsh frogs),’ and arrives,
after various dangers, at the place where the chorus of the
happy souls who have been initiated into the mysteries (¢.e. those
who are capable of enjoying properly the freedom and merriment
of comedy) perform their songs and dances: he and his servant
Xanthias have, however, still many amusing adventures to
undergo at Pluto’s gate, before they are admitted. It so happens
that a strife has arisen in the subterranean world between
Z&schylus, who had hitherto occupied the tragic throne, and the
newly-arrived Euripides, who lays claim to it: and Dionysus
connects this with his own plan by promising to take with him
to the upper regions whichever of the two gains the victory in
this contest. The contest which ensues is a peculiar mixture of
jest and earnest : it extends over every department of tragic
art,—the subject-matter and moral effects, the style and execu-
tion, prologues, choral songs and monodies, and often, though
in a very comic manner, hits the right point. The comedian,
however, does not hesitate to support, rather by bold figures
than by proofs, his opinion that Aischylus had uttered profound
observations, sterling truths, full of moral significance; while
Euripides, with his subtle reasonings, rendered insecure the basis
of religious faith and moral principles on which the weal of the
state rested. Thus, at the end of the play, the two tragedians
proceed to weigh their verses; and the powerful sayings of
Aischylus make the pointed thoughts of Euripides kick the
beam. In his fundamental opinion about the relative merits of
these poems, Aristophanes is undoubtedly so far right, that the
immediate feeling for and natural consciousness of the right

1 He is chiefly desirous of seeing the Andromeda of Euripides, which was
exceedingly popular with the people of Abdera also, Lucian. Quom. conser. sit.
Hist, 1.

2 The part of the Frogs was indeed performed by the chorus, but they were
not seen, (i.¢. it was a parachoregema;) probably the choreutz were placed in the
hyposcenium, (a space under the stage,) and therefore on the same elevation as the
orchestra.

46 ARISTOPHANES.

and the good which breathes in the works of Alschylus, was far
more conducive to the moral strength of mind and public virtue
of his fellow-citizens than a mode of reasoning like that in
Euripides, which brings all things before its tribunal, and, as it
were, makes everything dependent on the doubtful issue of a
trial. But Aristophanes is wrong in reproaching Euripides
personally with a tendency which exercised such an irresistible
influence on his age in general. If it was the aim of the
comedian to bring back the Athenian public to that point of
literary taste when Aischylus was fully sufficient for them, it
would have been necessary for him to be able to lock the wheels
of time, and to screw back the machinery which propelled the
mind in its forward progress.

We should not omit to mention the political references which
occasionally appear by the side of the literary contents of this
comedy. Aristophanes maintains his position of opponent to
the violent democrats: he attacks the demagogue Cleophon,
then in the height of his power: in the parabasis he recom-
mends the people, covertly but significantly enough, to make.
peace with and be reconciled to the persecuted oligarchs, who
had ruled over Athens during the time of the Four Hundred ;
recognising, however, the inability of the people to save them-
selves from the ruin which threatens them by their own power
and prudence, he hints that they should submit to the mighty
genius of Alcibiades, though he was certainly no old Athenian
according to the ideal of Aristophanes: this suggestion is con-

tained in two remarkable verses, which he puts into the mouth
of Aischylus :—

*T were best to rear no lion in the state,
But when ’tis done, his will must not be thwarted ;—

a piece of advice which would have been more in season had it
been delivered ten years earlier. .

§ 11. Aristophanes is the only one of the great Athenian
poets who survived the Peloponnesian war, in the course of
which Sophocles and Euripides, Cratinus and Eupolis, had all
died. We find him still writing for the stage for a series of
years after the close of the war. His Ecclesiazuse was probably
brought out in Ol. 96, 4. B.c. 392: it is a piece of wild

ANALYSIS OF THE PLUTUS. 47

drollery, but based upon the same political creed which Aristo-
phanes had professed for thirty years. Democracy had been
restored in its worst features; the public money was again
expended for private purposes ; the demagogue Agyrrhius was
catering for the people by furnishing them with pay for their
attendance in the public assembly ; and the populace were fol-
lowing to-day one leader, and to-morrow another. In this
state of affairs, according to the fiction of Aristophanes, the
women resolve to take upon themselves the whole management
of the city, and carry their point by appearing in the assembly
in men’s clothes, principally ‘ because this was the only thing
that had not yet been attempted at Athens ;’’ and people hoped
that, according to an old oracle, the wildest resolution which
they made would turn out to their benefit. The women then
establish an excellent Utopia, in which property and wives are
to be in common, and the interests of the ugly of both sexes
are specially provided for, a conception which is followed out
into all its absurd consequences with a liberal mixture of
humour and indecency.

From this combination of a serious thought, by way of
foundation, with the boldest creations of a riotous imagination,
the Ecclesiazuse must be classed with the works which appeared
during the vigour of Attic comedy: but the technical arrange-
ment shows, in a manner which cannot be mistaken, the poverty
and thriftiness of the state at this time. The chorus is obvi-
ously fitted out very parsimoniously ; its masks were easily
made, as they represented only Athenian women, who at first
appear with beards and men’s cloaks; besides, it required but
little practice, as it had but little to smg. The whole parabasis
is omitted, and its place is supplied by a short address, in which
the chorus, before it leaves the stage, calls upon the judges
to decide fairly and impartially.

These outward deviations from the original plan of the old
comedy are in the Plutus combined with great alterations in
the internal structure; and thus furnish a plain transition to

1 Eeclesiaz. v. 456. ἐδόκει yap τοῦτο μόνον ἐν τῃ πόλει
f οὔπω γεγενῆσθαι.
3 The choregie were not discontinued, but people endeavoured to make them less
expensive every year. See Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, book iii. § 22.

48 ARISTOPHANES.

the middle comedy, as it is called. The extant Plutus is not

that which the poet produced in Ol. 92, 4. B.c. 408, but that

which came out twenty years later in Ol. 97, 4. B.c. 388, and

was the last piece which the aged poet brought forward himself;

for two plays which he composed subsequently, the Cocalus and

Miolosicon, were brought out by his son Araros. [πὰ the extant

Plutus, Aristophanes tears himself away altogether from the

great political interests of the state. His satire in this piece is,

in part, universally applicable to all races and ages of men, for
it is directed against defects and perversities which attach them-

selves to our everyday life; and, in part, it is altogether

personal, as it attacks individuals selected from the mass at the

caprice of the poet, in order that the jokes may take a deeper _
and wider root. The conception on which it is based is of
- lasting significance: the god of riches has, in his blindness,
fallen into the hands of the worst of men, and has himself
suffered greatly thereby: a worthy, respectable citizen, Chre-
mylus, provides for the recovery of his. sight, and so makes
many good people prosperous, and reduces many knaves to
poverty. From the more general nature of the fable it follows
that the persons also have the general character of their condi-
tion and employments, in which the piece approximates to the
manner of the middle comedy, as it also does in the more
decent, less offensive, but at the same time less genial nature of
the language. The alteration, however, does not run through
the play so as to bring the new species of comedy before us in
its complete form ; here and there we feel the breath of the old
comedy around us, and we cannot avoid the melancholy convic-
tion that the genial comedian has survived the best days of his
art, and has therefore become insecure and unequal in his
application of it.

49

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE OTHER POETS OF THE OLD COMEDY—THE MIDDLE AND
NEW COMEDY.

§ 1. Characteristics of Cratinus. § 2. Eupolis. § 3. Peculiar tendencies of Crates ;
his connexion with Sicilian comedy. § 4. Sicilian comedy originates in the
Doric farces of Megara. § 5. Events in the life of Epicharmus; general tendency -
and nature of his comedy. § 6. The middle Attic comedy; poets of this class
akin to those of the Sicilian comedy in many of their pieces. § 7. Poets of the
new comedy the immediate successors of those of the middle comedy. How the
new comedy becomes naturalized at Rome. § 8. Public morality at Athens
at the time of the new comedy. § 9. Character of the new comedy in connexion
therewith.

§ 1. (A\RATINUS and Evpotis, Puerecrares and Hermrrrvs,

TELECLEIDES and PxarTo, and several of those who com-
peted with them for the prize of comedy, are known to us from
the names of a number of their pieces which have come down
to our time, and also from the short quotations from their plays
by subsequent authors; these furnish us with abundant ma-
terials for an inquiry into the details of Athenian life, public
and private, but are of little use for a description like the
present, which is based on the contents of individual works and
on the characteristics of the different poets.

Of Cratinvs, in particular, we learn more from the short but
pregnant notices of him by Aristophanes, than from the very
mutilated fragments of his works. Itis clear that he was well
fitted by nature for the wild and merry dances of the Bacchic
Comus. The spirit of comedy spoke out as clearly and as
powerfully in him as that of tragedy did in Aischylus. He
gave himself up with all the might of his genius to the fantastic
humour of this amusement, and the scattered sparks of his
wit proceeded from a soul imbued with the magnanimous honesty
of the older Athenians. His personal attacks were free from
all fear or regard to the consequences. As opposed to Cratinus,
Aristophanes appeared as a well educated man, skilled and apt
in speech, and not untinged with that very sophistic training of

Vou. 11. E

50 OTHER POETS OF THE OLD COMEDY.

Euripides, against which he so systematically inveighed: and
thus we find it asked in a fragment of Cratinus—‘ Who art
thou, thou hair-splitting orator; thou hunter after sentences ;
thou petty Euripidaristophanes Ὁ}

Even the names of his choruses show, to a certain extent, on
what various and bold devices the poems of Cratinus were based.
He not only made up a chorus of mere Archilochuses and Cleo-
bulines, ὁ. 6. of abusive slanderers and gossiping women ; he also
brought on a number of Ulysseses and Chirons as a chorus, and -
even Panopteses, ὁ. e. beings like the Argos-Panoptes of my-
thology, who had heads turned both ways, with innumerable
eyes,” by which, according to an ingenious explanation,’ he in-
tended to represent the scholars of Hippo, a speculative phi-
losopher of the day, whose followers pretended that nothing in
heaven or earth remained concealed from them. Even the
riches (πλοῦτοι) and the laws (νόμοι) of Athens formed choruses
in the plays of Cratinus, as, in general, Attic comedy took the
liberty of personifying whatever it pleased.

The play of Cratinus, with the plot of which we are best
acquainted, is the Pytine, or ‘ bottle,” which he wrote in the
_ last year of his life. In his later years Cratinus was un-

doubtedly much given to drinking, and Aristophanes and the
other comedians were already sneering at him as a doting old
man, whose poetry was fuddled with wine. Upon this the old
comedian suddenly roused himself, and with such vigour and
success that he won the prize, in Ol. 89, 1. B.c. 423, from all
his rivals, including Aristophanes, who brought out the Clouds
on the occasion. The piece which Cratinus thus produced was
the Pytine. With magnanimous candour the poet made him-
self the subject of his own comedy. The comic muse was
represented as the lawful wife of Cratinus, as the faithful
partner of his younger days, and she complained bitterly of the
neglect with which she was then treated in consequence of her
husband having become attached to another lady, the bottle.

1 Tis δὲ σύ ; (κομψός τις ἔροιτο θεατής)
Ὑπολεπτολόγος, γνωμιδιώτης, εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζων,
The answer of Aristophanes is mentioned above, chap. XXV. 8 7.
3 Κράνια δισσὰ φορεῖν, ὀφθαλμοὶ δ᾽ οὐκ ἀριθματοί"
3 Bergk de reliquiis Comedie Attice antique, p. 162.

CRATINUS—EUPOLIS. 51

She goes to the Archons, and brings a plaint of criminal neg-
lect (κάκωσις) against him; if her husband will not return to
her she is to obtain a divorce from him. The consequence is,
that the poet returns to his senses, and his old love is re-
awakened in his bosom; and at the end he raises himself up
in all the power and beauty of his poetical genius, and goes so
far in the drama that his friends try to stop his mouth, lest he
should carry away everything with the overflowing of his
imagery and versification.’ In this piece Cratinus does not
merit the reproach which has been generally cast upon him,
that he could not work out his own’ excellent conceptions, but,
as it were, destroyed them himself.

So early as the time when Cratinus was im his prime (Ol. 85,
I. B.c. 440), a law was passed limiting the freedom of comic
satire. It is very probable that it was under the constraint of
this law (which, however, was not long in force), that the
Ulysses (Οδυσσεῖς) of Cratinus was brought out; a piece of
which it was remarked by the old literary critics,’ that it came
nearer to the character of the middle comedy: it probably ab-
stained from all personal, and especially from political satire,
and kept itself within the circle of the general relations of man-
kind, in which it was easy for the poet to avail himself of the
old mythical story,—Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus.

§ 2. A Roman poet, who was very careful in his choice of
words, and who is remarkable for a certain pregnancy of ex-
pression,’ calls Cratinus ‘the bold, and in the same passage
opposes Evro.is to him, as ‘ the angry.’ Although Eupolis is
stated to have been celebrated for his elegance, and for the
aptness of his witticisms, as well as for his imaginative powers,*

1 Cratini fragmenta coll. Runkel, p. 50. Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Grec., vol. 1.
p. 54, vol. II. p. 116—132.

2 Platonius de Comedia, p. viii. That the piece contained a caricature (διασυρμόν
twa) of Homer's Odyssey is not to be understood as if Cratinus had wished to
ridicule Homer,

3 Audaci quicunque adflate Cratino,
Tratum Eupolidem preegrandi cum sene palles.
Persius I. 124. The Vita Aristophanis agrees with this.

4 Φαντασία, εὐφάνταστος. Platonius also speaks highly of the energy (ὑψηλός)
and grace (ἐπίχαρις) of Eupolis. He perhaps exaggerates the latter quality. See
Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Gr. vol. I. p. 107.

E 2

52 OTHER POETS OF THE OLD COMEDY.

his style was probably marked by a strong hatred of the pre-
vailing depravity, and by much bitterness of satire. He himself
claimed a share in the Knights of Aristophanes, in which per-
sonal satire prevails more than in any other comedy of that
poet. On the other hand, Aristophanes maintains that Eupolis,
in his Maricas, had imitated the Knights, and spoiled it by
injudicious additions.’ Of the Maricas, which was produced
Ol. 89, 3. B.c. 421, we only know thus much, that under this
slave’s name he exhibited the demagogue Hyperbolus, who suc-
ceeded to Cleon’s place in the favour of the people, and who
was, like Cleon, represented as a low-minded, ill-educated
fellow; the worthy Nicias was introduced in the piece chiefly
as the butt of his tricks. The most virulent, however, of the
plays of Eupolis was probably the Bapte, which is often men-
tioned by old writers, but in such terms that it is not easy to
gather a clear notion of this very singular drama. The view
which appears most probable to the author of these pages is,
that the comedy of Eupolis was directed against the club
(cratpia) of Alcibiades, and especially against a sort of mixture
of profligacy, which despised the conventional morality of the
day, and frivolity, and which set at nought the old religion of
Athens, and thus naturally assumed the garb of mystic and
foreign religions. In this piece Alcibiades and his comrades
appeared under the name of Bapte (which seems to haye been
borrowed from a mystic rite of baptism which they practised),
as worshippers of a barbarian deity Cotys or Cotytto, whose
wild worship was celebrated with the din of loud music, and
was made a cloak for all sorts of debauchery ; and the picture
given of these rites in the piece, if we may judge from what
Juvenal says,” must have been very powerful and impressive.
Eupolis composed two plays which obviously had some con-
nexion with one another, and which represented the political
condition of Athens at the time, the one in its domestic, the
other in its external relations. In the former, which was ¢alled
the Demi, the boroughs of Attica, of which the whole people
consisted (οἱ δῆμοι), formed the persons of the chorus; and
Myronides, a distinguished general and statesman of the time

1 Aristophanes, Clouds, 553. 2 Juvenal, II. gr.

7

EUPOLIS—CRATES. 53

of Pericles, who had survived the great men of his own day,
and now in extreme old age felt that he stood alone in the
midst of a degenerate race, was represented as descending to
the other world to restore to Athens one of her old leaders ;
and he does in fact bring back Solon, Miltiades, and Pericles.
The poet contrived, no doubt, to construct a very agreeable plot
by a portraiture of these men, in which respect for the great-
ness of their characters was combined with many merry jests,
and by exhibiting on the other side, in the most energetic
manner, the existing state of Athens, destitute as she then was
of good statesmen and generals. From some fragments it
appears that the old heroes felt very uncomfortable in this upper
world of ours, and that the chorus had to intreat them most
earnestly not to give up the state-affairs and the army of
Athens to a set of effeminate and presumptuous young men :
at the conclusion of the piece, the chorus offers up to the spirits
of the heroes, with all proper ceremonies, the wool-bound olive
boughs (εἰρεσιῶναι), by which, according to the religious rites
of the Greeks, it had supported its supplications to them, and so
honours them as gods. In the Poleis, the chorus consisted of
the allied or rather tributary cities ; the island of Chios, which
had always remained true to Athens, and was therefore better
treated than the others, stood advantageously prominent among
them, and Cyzicus in the Propontis brought up the rear. Be-
yond this little is known about the connexion of the plot.

ὃ 3. Among the remaining comic poets of this time, Crarrs
stands most prominently forward, because he differs most from
the others. From being an actor in Cratinus’ plays, Crates had
risen to the rank of a comic poet ; he was, however, anything
but an imitator of his master. On the contrary, he entirely
gave up the field which Cratinus and the other comedians had
chosen as their regular arena, namely, political satire; perhaps
because in his inferior position he lacked the courage to attack

1 That Myronides brings up Pericles is clear from a comparison of Plutarch,
Pericl. 24, with the passages of Aristides, Platonius, and others, (Raspe de Zupolid.
Δήμοις et ἸΤόλεσιν. Lips. 1832.) Pericles asks Myronides, ‘Why he brings him
back to life? are there no good people in Athens? if his son by Aspasia is not
a great statesman? and so forth. From this it is clear that it was Myronides
who had conveyed him from the other world.

54 OTHER POETS OF THE OLD COMEDY.

from the stage the most powerful demagogues, or because he
thought that department already exhausted of its best materials.
His skill lay in the more artificial design and development of
his plots,’ and the interest of his pieces depended on the con-
nexion of the stories which they involved. Accordingly, Aris-
tophanes says of him,’ that he had feasted the Athenians at a
trifling expense, and had with great sobriety given them the
enjoyment of his most ingenious inventions. Crates is said to
have been the first who introduced the drunkard on the stage:
and Puerecrates, who of the later Attic comedians most
resembled Crates,’ painted the glutton with most colossal
features.

§ 4. Aristotle connects Crates with the Sicilian comic poet
EpicuarMus, and no doubt he stood ina nearer relation to him
than the other comedians of Athens. This will be the right
place to speak of this celebrated poet, as it would have disturbed
the historic development of the Attic drama had we turned our
attention at an earlier period to the comedy of Sicily. As we
have already remarked (chap. XXVII. § 3), Sicilian comedy is
connected with the old farces of Megara, but took a different
direction, and one quite peculiar to itself. The Megarian farces
themselves did not exhibit the political character which was so
early assumed by Attic comedy ; but they cultivated a depart-

ment of raillery which was unknown to the comedy of Aris- —

tophanes, that is, a ludicrous imitation of certain classes and
conditions of common life. A lively and cheerful observation
of the habits and manners connected with certain offices and
professions soon enabled the comedian to observe something
characteristic in them, and often something narrow-minded and
partial, something quite foreign to the results of a liberal educa-
tion, something which rendered the person awkward and un-

fitted for other employments, and so opened a wide field for

satire and witticisms. In this way Mason, an old Megarian

1 Aristot. Poet.c.5. Tay δὲ ᾿Αθήνησι Κράτης πρῶτος ἧρξεν, ἀφέμενος τῆς ἰαμβικῆς
ἰδέας, καθόλου λόγους ἢ μύθους ποιξιν" ἱ.6. ‘ Of the Athenian comedians, Crates was
the first who gave up personal satire, and began to makenarratives or poems on more
general subjects.’

® Knights, 537. Comp. Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Gree. p. 60.

3 Anonym. de Comedia, p. xxix.,

ΝΥΝ δε ee

SICILIAN COMEDY. 55

comic actor and poet,’ constantly employed the mask of a cook
or a scullion: consequently such persons were called Mzsones
(μαίσωνες) at Athens, and their jokes Mesonian (μαισωνικα)
A considerable element in such representations would consist of
mimicry and absurd gestures, such as the Dorians seem to have
been generally more fond of than the Athenians ; the amusement
furnished by the Spartan Deicelicte (δεικήλικται) was made up
of the imitation of certain characters taken from commom life ;
for instance, the character of a foreign physician represented in
a sort of pantomime dance, and with the vulgar language of the
lower orders.* The more probable supposition is, that this sort
of comedy passed over to Sicily through the Doric colonies, as
it is on the western boundaries of the Grecian world that we find
a general prevalence of comic dramas in which the amusement
consists in a recurrence of the same character and the same
species of masks. The Oscan pastime of the Afellane, which
went from Campania to Rome, was also properly designated by
these standing characters ; and great as the distance was from
the Dorians of the Peloponnese to the Oscans of Atella, we may
nevertheless discern in the character-masks of the latter some
clear traces of Greek influence.*

In Sicily, comedy made its first appearance at Selinus, a
Megarian colony. ARIstoxENUS, who composed comedies in the
Dorian dialect, lived here before Epicharmus ; how long before
him cannot be satisfactorily ascertained. In fact we know very
little about him; still it is remarkable that among the few
records of him which we possess there is a verse which was the
commencement of a somewhat long invective against sooth-

1 There can be no doubt that he lived at a time when there existed by the side of
the Attic comedy a Megarian drama of the same kind, of which Ecphantides, a
predecessor of Cratinus, and other poets of the old comedy, spoke as a rough
farcical entertainment. The Megarian comedian Solynus belongs to the same
period.

3 The grammarian Aristophanes of Byzantium, quoted by Atheneus, XIV., p.
659, and Festus, 5. v. Meson.

3 See Miiller’s Dorians, b. iv. ch. 6. ὃ 9.

4 Among the standing masks of the Atellana was the Pappus, whose name is
obviously the Greek πάππος, and reminds us of the Παπποσείληνος, the old leader
of the satyrs, in the satyric drama ; the Maccus, whose name is explained by the Greek
μακκοᾶν ; also the Simus, (at least in later times: Sueton. Galba, 13), which was a
peculiar epithet of the Satyrs from their flat noses.

56 OTHER POETS OF THE OLD COMEDY.

sayers ;' whence it is clear that he, too, occupied himself with

the follies and absurdities of whole classes and conditions of
men. ;

§ 5. The flourishing period of Sicilian comedy was that in which

Puormis, Ertcuarmvs, and Dernotocuus (the son or scholar

of the latter), wrote for the stage. Phormis is mentioned as

.the friend of Gelo and the instructor of his children. Accord-

ing to credible authorities, Epicharmus was a native of Cos,

who went to Sicily with Cadmus, the tyrant of Cos, when he

resigned his power and emigrated to that island, about Ol. 73,

B.c. 488. Epicharmus at first resided a short time at the

Sicilian Megara, where he probably first commenced his career

as a comedian. Megara was conquered by Gelo (Ol. 74, 1 or 2.

B.C. 484, 483), and its inhabitants were removed to Syracuse,

and Epicharmus among them. The prime of his life, and the

most flourishing period of his art, are included in the reign of
Hiero (Ol. 75, 3. to Ol. 78, 2. B.c. 478—467.) These chrono-

logical data are sufficient to show that the tendency of Epi-

charmus’ comedy could not be political. The safety and
dignity of a ruler like Hiero would have been alike incompa-

tible with such a licence of the stage. It does not, however,

follow from this, that the plays of Epicharmus did not touch

upon or perhaps give a complete picture of the great events of
the time and the circumstances of the country ; and in fact we

can clearly point out such references to the events of the day

in several of the fragments: but the comedies of Epicharmus

did not, like those of Aristophanes, take a part in the contests

of political factions and tendencies, nor did they select some

particular political circumstance of Syracuse to be praised as

fortunate, while they represented what was opposed to it as

miserable and ruinous. The comedy of Epicharmus has a

general relation to the affairs of mankind: it ridicules the

follies and perversities which certain forms of education had

introduced into the social life of man; and a considerable

element in it was a vivid representation of particular classes

and persons from common life ; a large number of Epicharmus’

plays seem to have been comedies of character, such as his

In Hepheestion, Encheir. p. 45.

SICILIAN COMEDY. 57

‘Peasant,’ (’A-ypworivoc,) and ‘the Ambassadors to the Fes-
tival,” (Θεᾶροι;) we are positively informed that Epicharmus
was the first to bring on the stage the Parasite and the
Drunkard,—characters which Crates worked up for Athenian
comedy. Epicharmus was also the first to use the name of the
Parasite,’ which afterwards became so common in Greek and
Roman plays, and it is likely that the rude, merry features
with which Plautus has drawn this class of persons may, in
their first outlines, be traceable to Epicharmus.? The Syra-
cusan poet no doubt showed in the invention of such cha-
racters much of that shrewdness for which the Dorians were
distinguished more than the other Greek tribes; careful and
acute observations of mankind are compressed into a few
striking traits and nervous expressions, so that we seem to see
through the whole man though he has spoken only a few
words. But in Epicharmus this quality was combined in a
very peculiar manner with a striving after philosophy. Epi-
charmus was a man of a serious cast of mind, variously and
profoundly educated. He belonged originally to the school of
physicians at Cos, who derived their art from A‘sculapius. He
had been initiated by Arcesas, a scholar of Pythagoras, into the
peculiar system of the Pythagorean philosophy; and _ his
comedies abounded in philosophical aphorisms,’ not merely,
as one might at first expect, on notions and principles of

ΤῸ the Attic drama of Eupolis the parasites of the rich Callias appeared as
κόλακες ; but the fact that they constituted the chorus rendered it impossible that
they could be made a direct object of comic satire. Alexis, of the middle comedy,
was the first who brought the parasite (under this name) on the stage.

2 Gelasime, salve.—Non id est nomen mihi.—
Certo mecastor id fuit nomen tibi.—
Fuit disertim; verum id usu perdidi ;
Nune Miccotrogus nomine ex vero vocor,’
Plaut. Stich. act I. sc. 3.

The name Miecotrogus, by which the parasite in the preceding passage calls him-
self, is not Attic but Doric, and therefore is perhaps derived from Epicharmus.

8 Epicharmus himself says in some beautiful verses quoted by Diogenes Laertius,
III. ὃ 17, that one of his successors would one day surpass all other speculators by
adopting his sayings in another form, without metre. It is perhaps not unlikely
that the philosophical anthology which was in vogue under the name of Epicharmus,
and which Ennius in his Zpicharmus imitated in trochaic tetrameters, was an ex-
cerpt from the comedies of Epicharmus, just as the Gnomology, which we have
under the name of Theognis, was a set of extracts from his Elegies.

58 OTHER POETS OF THE OLD COMEDY.

morality, but also on metaphysical points—-God and the world,
body and soul, &c.; where it is certainly difficult to conceive
how Epicharmus interwove these speculative discourses into the
texture of his comedies. Suffice it to say, we see that Epi-
charmus found means to connect a representation of the follies
and absurdities of the world in which he lived, with profound
speculations on the nature of things; whence we may infer how
entirely different his manner was from that of the Athenian
comedy,

With this general ethical and philosophical tendency we may
easily reconcile the mythical form, which we find in most of the
comedies of Epicharmus,' Mythical personages have general
and formal features, free from all accidental peculiarities, and
may therefore be made the best possible basis of the principles
and results, the symptoms and criteria of good and bad cha-
racters. Did we but possess the comedy of the Dorians, and
those portions of the old and middle comedy (especially the
latter) which are so closely connected with it, we should be
able to discern clearly what we can now only guess from titles
and short fragments, that mythology thus treated was just as
fruitful a source of materials for comedy as for the ideal world
of the tragic drama. No doubt, the whole system of gods and
heroes must have been reduced to a lower sphere of action in
order to suit them to the purposes of comedy: the anthropo-
morphic treatment of the gods must necessarily have arrived at
its last stage ; the deities must have been reduced to the level ©
of common life with all its civic and domestic relations, and
must have exhibited the lowest and most vulgar inclinations
and passions. Thus the insatiable gluttony of Hercules was a
subject which Epicharmus painted in vivid colours ;? in another
place,’ a marriage feast among the gods was represented as
extravagantly luxurious; a third, ‘ Hephestus, or the Revel-
lers,’* exhibited the quarrel of the fire-god with his mother Hera
as a mere family brawl, which is terminated very merrily by
Bacchus, who, when the incensed son has left Olympus, invites

1 Of 35 titles of his comedies, which haye come down to us, 17 are borrowed
from mythological personages. Grysar, de Doriensium Comedia, p. 274.

2 In his Busiris, 4In the Marriage of Hebe,
3 Ἥφαιστος ἤ Kwpacral,

SICILIAN COMEDY. 59

him to a banquet, makes him sufficiently drunk, and then con-
ducts him back in triumph to Olympus, in the midst of a
tumultuous band of revellers. The most lively view which we
still have of this mythological comedy is furnished by the scenes
in Aristophanes, which seem to have the same tone and feeling :
such as that in which Prometheus appears as the malcontent
and intriguer in Olympus, and points out the proper method of
depriving the gods of their sovereignty ; and then the embassy
of the three gods, when Hercules, on smelling the roasted
birds, forgets the interest of his own party, and the voice of
the worst of the three ambassadors constitutes the majority ;
this shows us what striking pictures for situations of common
life and common relations might be borrowed from the sup-
posed condition of the gods. At any rate, we may also see
from this how the comic treatment of mythology differed from
that in the satyric drama. In the latter, the gods and heroes
were introduced among a class of beings in whom a rude, un-
cultivated mode of life predominated: in the former they
descended to social life, and were subject to all the deficiencies
and infirmities of human society.

§ 6. The Sicilian comedy in its artistic development pre-
ceded the Attic by about a generation; yet the transition to
the middle Attic comedy, as it is called, is easier from Epi-
charmus than from Aristophanes, who appears very unlike him-
self in the play which tends towards the form of the middle
comedy. This branch of comedy belongs to a time when the
democracy was still moving in unrestrained freedom, though
the people had no longer such pride and confidence in them-
selves as to ridicule from the stage their rulers and the reco-
gnised principles of state policy, and at the same time to prevent
themselves from being led astray by such ridicule. The unfor-
tunate termination of the Peloponnesian war had damped the
first fresh vigour of the Athenian state; freedom and democracy
had been restored to the Athenians, and even a sort of maritime
supremacy ; but their former energy of public life had not been
restored along with these things; there were too many weak-
nesses and defects in all parts of their political condition,—in
their finances, in the war-department, in the law-courts. The
Athenians, perhaps, were well aware of this, but they were too

60 THE MIDDLE COMEDY.

indolent and fond of pleasure to set about in earnest to free
themselves from these inconveniences. Under such circum-
stances, satire and ridicule, such as Aristophanes indulged
in, would have been quite intolerable, for it would no longer
have pointed out certain shadows in a bright and glorious pic-
ture, but would have exhibited one dark picture without a
single redeeming ray of light, and so would have lacked all the
cheerfulness of comedy. Accordingly, the comedians of this
time took that general moral tendency which we have pointed
out in the Megarian comedy and in all that is connected with it ;
they represented the ludicrous absurdities of certain classes and
conditions in society,’ and in their diction kept close to the
language of common life, which prevails much more uniformly
in their plays than in those of Aristophanes, with the exception
of some few passages, where it is interrupted by parodies of
epic and tragic poetry.2 These comedians were not alto-
gether without a basis of personal satire; but this was no
longer directed against influential men, the rulers of the
people ;* or, if it touched them at all, it was not on account of
their political character, or of any principles approved by the
bulk of the people. On the contrary, the middle comedy cul-
tivated a narrower field of its own,—the department of literary
rivalship. The poems of the middle comedy were rich in ridi-
cule of the Platonic Academy, of the newly-revived sect of
the Pythagoreans, of the orators and rhetoricians of the day,
and of the tragic and epic poets: they sometimes even took a
retrospective view, and subjected to their criticism anything
which they thought weak or imperfect in the poems of Homer.

1A bragging cook, a leading personage in middle comedy, was the chief cha-
racter in the 4olosicon of Aristophanes. We may infer what influence the Mega-
rian and Sicilian comedy had in the formation of regular standing characters, from
the fact that Pollux (Onom. IV. § 146, 148, 150) names the Sicilian parasite and
the scullion Mason among the masks of the new comedy, (according to the restora-
tion by Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Gree., p. 664, comp. above, § 4.)

5 Hence we see why the Scholiast, in the Plutus, 515, recognises the character
of the middle comedy in the epic tone of the passage.

3 On the contrary, these comedians considered ludicrous representations ot
foreign rulers as quite allowable; thus the Dionysius of Eubulus was directed
against the Sicilian tyrants, and the Dionysalecandrus of the younger Cratinus
against Alexander of Phere. Similarly, in later times, Menander satirized Dio-
nysius, tyrant of Heraclea, and Philemon king Magas of Cyrene.

‘POETS OF THE MIDDLE COMEDY. 61

This criticism was totally different from that directed by Aris-
tophanes against Socrates, which was founded exclusively upon
moral and practical views ; the judgments of the middle comedy
considered everything in a literary point of view, and, if we may
reason from individual instances, were directed solely against the
character of the writings of the persons criticised. In the tran-
sition from the old to the middle comedy we may discern at once
the great revolution which had taken place in the domestic his-
tory of Athens, when the Athenians, from a people of politicians,
became a nation of literary men; when, instead of pronouncing
judgment upon the general politics of Greece, and the law-suits
of their allies, they judged only of the genuineness of the Attic
style and of good taste in oratory; when it was no longer the
opposition of the political ideas of Themistocles and Cimon, but
the contest of opposing schools of philosophers and rhetoricians,
which set all heads in motion. This great change was not fully
accomplished till the time of Alexander’s successors; but the
middle comedy stands as a guide-post, clearly pointing out the
way to this consummation. The frequency of mythical subjects
in the comedies of this class’ has the same grounds as in the
Sicilian comedy ; for the object in both was to clothe general
delineations of character in a mythicalform. Further than this,
we must admit that our conceptions of the middle comedy are
somewhat vacillating and uncertain; this arises from the con-
stitution of the middle comedy itself, which is rather a transition
state than a distinct species. Consequently, we find, along
with many features resembling the old comedy, also some pecu-
liarities of the new. Aristotle, indeed, speaks only of an old
and a new comedy, and does not mention the middle comedy as
distinct from the new.

The poets of the middle comedy are also very numerous ;
they occupy the interval between Ol. I00. B.c. 380, and
the reign of Alexander. Among the earliest of them we find
the sons of Aristophanes, Araros and Purippvs, and the prolific
Evsutvs, who flourished about Ol. 107. B.c. 376: then follows
ANAXANDRIDES, who is said to have been the first to introduce

1 Meineke (Hist. Crit. Com. Grec., p. 283, foll.) gives a long list of such
mythical comedies.

62 THE NEW COMEDY.

into comedy the stories of love and seduction, which afterwards
formed so large an ingredient in it'—so that we have here
another reference to the new comedy, and the first step in its
subsequent development. Then we have Ampuis and ANnaxi-
LAus, both of whom made Plato the butt of their wit; the
younger Cratinus; Timocxies, who ridiculed the orators De-
mosthenes and Hyperides; still later, ALexts, one of the most
productive, and at the same time one of the most eminent of
these poets: his fragments, however, show a decided affinity to
the new comedy, and he was a contemporary of Menander and
Philemon.? AnrtreHanes began to exhibit as early as 383 B.c. ;
his comedies, however, were of much the same kind with those
of Alexis: he was by far the most prolific of the poets of the
middle comedy, and was distinguished by his redundant wit
and inexhaustible invention. The number of his pieces, which
amounted to 300, and according to some authorities exceeded
that number, proves that the comedians of this time no longer
contended, like Aristophanes, with single pieces, and only at the
Lenza and great Dionysia, but either composed for the other
festivals, or, what seems to us the preferable opinion, produced
several pieces at the same festival.’

§ 7. These last poets of the middle comedy were contem-
poraries of the writers of the new comedy, who rose up as their
rivals, and were only distinguished from them by following their
new tendency more decidedly and more exclusively. Mrnan-
DER was one of the first of these poets (he flourished at the
time immediately succeeding the death of Alexander ἢ), and he
was also the most perfect of them, which will not surprise us if
we consider the middle comedy as a sort of preparation for the

1The Cocalus of Aristophanes (Araros) contains, according to Platonius, a
scene of seduction and recognition of the same kind with those in the comedies of
Menander.

2It appears by the fragment of the Hypobolimeus, (Athen. XI. p. 502. B.
Meineke Hist. Crit. Com. Grec. p. 315.)

3 Concerning Antiphanes, see Clinton, Philol. Mus. I. p. 558 foll., and Meineke,
Hist. Crit. Com. Gr. p. 304—40. It appears from the remarks of Clinton, p. 607,
and Meineke, p. 305, that the passage attributed by Atheneus IV. p. 156. ©., to
Antiphanes, in which king Seleucus is mentioned, is probably by another comic poet.

4 Menander brought out his first piece when he was still a young man (ἔφηβος) in

Ol. 114, 3. B.C. 322, and died as early as Ol. 122, 1. B.C. 291.

POETS OF THE NEW COMEDY. 63

new.’ PxHrILtEeMon came forward rather earlier than Menander,
and survived him many years; he was a great favourite with
the Athenians, but was always placed after Menander by those
who knew them both.? These are followed by Purtirripss, a
contemporary of Philemon ;* by Direuiivus of Sinope,* who was
somewhat later; by Arottoporvus of Gela, a contemporary of
Menander, Arottoporvs of Carystus, who was in the following
generation,’ and by a considerable number of poets, more or
less worthy to be classed with these.

Passing here from the middle comedy to the new, we come
at once to a clearer region; here the Roman imitations, com-
bined with the numerous and sometimes considerable fragments,
are sufficient to give us a clear conception of a comedy of Me-
nander in its general plan and in its details: a person who
possessed the peculiar talents requisite for such a task, and had
acquired by study the acquaintance with the Greek language
and the Attic subtlety of expression necessary for the execution
of it, might without much difficulty restore a piece of Menander’s,
so as to replace the lost original. The comedy of the Romans
must not be conceived as merely a learned and literary imitation
of the Greek ; it formed a living union with the Greek comedy,
by a transfer to Rome of the whole Greek stage, not by a mere
transmission through books; and in point of time too there is
an immediate and unbroken connexion between them. For
although the period at which the Greek new comedy flourished
followed immediately upon the death of Alexander, yet the first
generation was followed by a second, as Philemon the son fol-
lowed Philemon the father, and comic writing of less merit and
reputation most probably continued till a late period to provide
by new productions for the amusement of the people; so that

1 According to Anon. de comedia, Menander was specially instructed in his art
by Alexis.

2 Menander said to him, when he had won the prize from him in a dramatic
contest, ‘Philemon, do you not blush to conquer me? Aul. Gel. V.A. XVIL. 4.

3 According to Suidas he came forward Ol. 111., still earlier than Philemon.

4 Sinope was at that time the native city of three comedians, Diphilus, Diony-
sius, and Diodorus, and also of the cynic philosopher Diogenes. It must have
been the fashion at Sinope to derive proper names from Zeus, the Zeus Chthonius
or Serapis of Sinope.

5 According to the inferences in Meineke’s Hist. Crit. Com. Grec., p. 459, 462.

64 THE NEW COMEDY.

when Livius Andronicus first appeared before the Roman pub-
lic with plays in imitation of the Greek (A.U.c. 514. B.C. 240),
the only feat which he performed was, to attempt in the lan-
guage of Rome what many of his contemporaries were in the
habit of doing in the Greek language; at any rate, the plays of
Menander and Philemon were the most usual gratification which
an educated audience sought for in the theatres of Greek
states, as well in Asia as in Italy. By viewing the case in this
way, we assume at once the proper position for surveying the
Latin comedians in all their relations to the Greek, which are so
peculiar that they can only be developed under these limited
historical conditions. For to take the two cases, which seem
at first sight the most obvious and natural; namely, first, that
translations of the plays of Menander, Philemon, &c., were sub-
mitted to the educated classes at Rome; or secondly, that people
attempted by free imitations to transplant these pieces into a
Roman soil, and then to suit them to the tastes and under-
standings of the Roman people by Romanizing them, not merely
in all the allusions to national customs and regulations, but also
in their spirit and character: neither of these two alternatives
was adopted, but the Roman comedians took a middle course, in
consequence of which these plays became Roman and yet re-
mained perfectly Greek. In other words, in the Greek comedy
(or comedia palliata, as it was called) of the Romans, the train-
ing of Greece in general, and of Athens in particular, ex-
tended itself to Rome, and compelled the Romans, so far as
they wished to participate in that, in which all the educated
world at that time participated, to acquiesce-in the outward
forms and conditions of this drama ;—in its Greek costume and
Athenian locality ; to adopt Attic life as a model of social ease
and familiarity; and (to speak plainly) to consider themselves
for an hour or two as mere barbarians,—and, in fact, the
Roman comedians occasionally speak of themselves and their
countrymen as barbari.’

It is necessary that we should premise these observations
(however much they may seem chronologically misplaced), in

1See Plautus, Bacchid. I. 2.15. Captivi. III, 1. 32. IV. 1. 104. Trinwmm.
Prol. 19. Festus v. barbari and vapula.

PUBLIC MORALITY AT ATHENS. 65.

order to justify the use which we purpose to make of Plautus
and Terence. ‘The Roman comedians prepared the Greek dish
for the Roman palate in a different manner according to their
own peculiar tastes ; for example, Plautus seasoned it with coarse
and powerful condiments, Terence, on the other hand, with
moderate and delicate seasoning ;’ but it still remained the
Attic dish: the scene brought before the Roman public was
Athens in the time of those Macedonian rulers who are called
the Diadochi and Epigoni.’

§ 8. Consequently, the scene was Athens after the downfall
of its political freedom and power, effected by the battle of
Cheronea, and still more by the Lamian war: but it was
Athens, still the city of cities, overflowing with population,
flourishing with commerce, and strong in its navy, prosperous
both as a state and in the wealth of many of its individual
citizens.* This Athens, however, differed from that of Cimon
and Pericles much in the same way as an old man weak in body,
but full of a love of life, good-humoured and self-indulgent,
differs from the vigorous middle-aged man at the summit of his
bodily strength and mental energy. The qualities which were
before singularly united in the Athenian character, namely,
resolute bravery and subtlety of intellect, were now entirely dis-
joined and separated. The former had taken up its abode with
the homeless bands of mercenaries who practised war as a handi-
craft, and it was only on impulses of rare occurrence that the
people of Athens gave way to a warlike enthusiasm which was
speedily kindled and as speedily quenched. But the excellent
understanding and mother-wit of the Athenians, so far as they
did not ramble in the schools of the philosophers and rheto-

1 Yet Plautus is more frequently an imitator and a translator of the Attic come-
dians than many persons have supposed. Not to speak of Terence, Ceecilius Statius
has also followed very closely in the steps of Menander.

2 So much so, that the most peculiar features of Attic law (as in all that related
to ἐπίκληροι, or heiresses) and of the political relations of Athens (as the κληρουχία
in Lemnos) play an important part in the Roman comedies.

8 The finances of Athens were to all appearance as flourishing under Lycurgus
(i.e. B.C. 338—326) as under Pericles. The well-known census under Demetrius
the Phalerian (8.0. 317) gives a proof of the number of citizens and slaves at Athens.
Even in the days of Demetrius Poliorcetes, Athens had still a great fleet. In a
word, Athens did not want means at this time to enable her to command the
respect even of kings; she only lacked the necessary spirit.

Vot. II. F

66 THE NEW COMEDY.

ricians, found an object (now that there was so little in polities
which could interest or employ the mind) in the occurrences of
social life, and in the charm of dissolute enjoyments.

Dramatic poetry now for the first time centred in Jove,’ as it
has since done among all nations to whom Greek cultivation has
descended ; but certainly it was not love in those nobler forms
to which it has since elevated itself. The seclusion and want
of all society in which unmarried women lived at Athens (such
as we have before described it, in speaking of the poetry of
Sappho)’ continued to prevail unaltered in the families of the
citizens of Athens; according to these customs then, an amour
of any continuance with the daughter of a citizen of Athens was
out of the question, and never occurs in the fragments and imi-
tations of the comedy of Menander; if the plot of the piece
depends on the seduction of an Athenian damsel, this has taken
place suddenly and without premeditation, in a fit of drunken-
ness and youthful lust, generally at one of the pervigilia, which
the religion of Athens had sanctioned from the earliest times:
or some supposed slave or hefera, with whom the hero is des-
perately in love, turns out to be a well-born Athenian maiden,
and marriage at last crowns a connexion entered upon with very
different intentions.’

The intercourse of the young men with the hetere, or
courtesans, an intercourse which had always been a reproach to
them since the days of Aristophanes,‘ had at length become a
regular custom with the young people of the better class, whose
fathers did not treat them too. parsimoniously. These courte-
sans, who were generally foreigners or freed-women,’ possessed
more or less education and charms of manner, and in proportion
to these attractions, bound the young people to them with more
or less of constancy and exclusiveness; their lovers found an

1 Fabula jucundi nulla est sine amore Menandri. Ovid. 7rist,, II. 369.

2 Chap, XIII, § 6,

® This is the φθορὰ and the ἀναγνώρισις, which formed the basis of so many of
Menander’s comedies,

4 See 6, 9. Clouds, 996.

5 This constitutes the essential distinction between the ἑταίρα and the πόρνη, the
latter being a slave of the πορνοβοσκός (ὁ, ἡ, the leno or lena), although the πόρναι

are often ransomed (torres) by their lovers, and so rise into the other more honour-
able condition,

PUBLIC MORALITY AT ATHENS. 67

entertainment in their society which naturally rendered them
little anxious to form a regular matrimonial alliance, especially
as the legitimate daughters of Athenian citizens were still brought
up in a narrow and limited manner, and with few accomplish-
ments. The fathers either allowed their sons a reasonable
degree of liberty to follow their own inclinations and sow their
wild oats, or through parsimony or morose strictness endeavoured
to withhold from them these indulgences, in the midst of all
which it often happened that the old man fell into the very
same follies which he so harshly reproved in his son. In these
domestic intrigues the slaves exercised an extraordinary influence:
even in Xenophon’s time, favoured by the spirit of democracy,
and as it seems almost standing on the same footing with the
meaner citizens, they were still more raised up by the growing
degeneracy of manners, and the licence which universally pre-
vailed. In these comedies, therefore, it often happens that a
slave forms the whole plan of operations in an intrigue; it is”
his sagacity alone which relieves his young master from some
disagreeable embarrassment, and helps to put him in possession
of the object of his love; at the same time we are often intro-
duced to rational slaves, who try to induce their young masters
to follow the suggestions of some sudden better resolution, and
free themselves at once from the exactions of an unreasonable
hetera.' No less important are the parasites, who, not to speak
of the comic situations in which they are placed by their reso-
lution to eat without labouring for it, are of great use to the
comedian in their capacity as a sort of dependent on the family :

1 As in Menander’s Zwnuch, in the scene of which Persius gives a miniature
copy (Sat. V. 161), In this passage Persius has Menander immediately in his eye,
and not the imitation in Terence’s Zunuch, act 1, sc. 1, although Terence’s Phedria,
Parmeno, and Thais, correspond to the Cherestratus, Daos, and Chrysis of Me-
nander. In Menander, however, the young man takes counsel with his slave at a
time when the hetewra had shut him out, and on the supposition that she would
invite him to come to her again; in Terence the lover is already invited to a
reconciliation after a quarrel. This results from the adoption by Terence of a prae-
tice common with the Latin comedians, and called contaminatio; he has here com-
bined in one piece two of Menander’s comedies, the Zunuch and the Kolax. Ac-
cordingly he is obliged to take up the thread of the Zunuch somewhat later, in order
to gain more room for the developement of his double plot. In the same manner
the Adelphi of Terence is made up from the Γεωργὸς of Menander and the
Συναποθνήσκοντες of Diphilus.

F 2

Γ

68 THE NEW COMEDY.

they are brought into social relations of every kind, and are
ready to perform any service for the sake of a feast. Of the
characters who make their appearance less frequently, we will
only speak here of the Bramarbas or miles gloriosus. He is no
Athenian warrior, no citizen-soldier, like the heroes of the olden
time, but a nameless leader of mercenaries, who enlists men-at-
arms, now for king Seleucus, now for some other crowned
general ; who makes much booty with little trouble in the rich
provinces of Asia, and is willing to squander it away in lavish
extravagance on the amiable courtesans of Athens ; who is always
talking of his services, and has thereby habituated himself to
continual boasting and bragging: consequently he is a demi-
barbarian, over-reached by his parasite, and cheated at pleasure

by some clever slave, and with many other traits of this kind.

which may easily be derived from the Roman comedies, but can
only be viewed in their right light by placing the character about
one hundred years earlier.’

§ 9. This was the world in which Menander lived, and which,
according to universal testimony, he painted so truly. Mani-
festly, the motives here rested upon no mighty impulses, no
grand ideas. The strength of the old Athenian principles and
the warmth of national feelings had gradually grown fainter and
weaker till they had melted down into a sort of philosophy of
life, the main ingredients of which were a natural good temper
and forbearance, and a sound mother-wit nurtured by acute ob-
servation ; and its highest principle was that rule of ‘live and
let live,’ which had its root in the old spirit of Attic democracy,
and had been developed to the uttermost by the lax morality of
subsequent times.”

It is highly worthy of observation, as a hint towards appre-
ciating the private life of this period, that Menander and Epi-

1The ἀλάζων of Theophrastus (Charact. 23) has some affinity with the Thraso —

of comedy (as Theophrastus’s characters in general are related to those of Menan-

der), but he is an Athenian citizen who is proud of his connexion with Macedon, —

and not a mercenary soldier.

2 The aristocratic constitutions at that time in Greece were connected with a

stricter superintendence of morals (censura morum) ; the leading principle of the
Athenian democracy, on the other hand, was to impose no further restraint on the

private life of the citizen than the immediate interests of the state required. How- —
ever, the writings of the new comedy were not altogether without personal invee-

ITS CHARACTER. 69

curus were born in the same year at Athens, and spent their
youth together as sharers in the same exercises (συνέφηβοι) :'
and an intimate friendship united these two men, whose charac-
ters had much in common. Though we should wrong them
both if we considered them as slaves to any vulgar sensuality,
yet it cannot be doubted that they were both of them deficient
in the inspiration of high moral ideas. The intention with
which each of them acted was the same: to make the most of
life as it is, and to make themselves as agreeable as they could.
They were both too refined and sensible to take any pleasure
in vulgar enjoyments ; Menander knew so well by experience
the deceitfulness of these gratifications, and felt so great a
weariness and disgust of their charms, that he had arrived at a
sort of passionless rest and moderation ;? though it is possible
that in actual life Menander placed his happiness less in the
painless tranquillity which Epicurus sought, than in various
kinds of moderate gratification. It is known how much he
gave himself up to intercourse with the hefere, not merely with
the accomplished Glycera, but also with the wanton Thais; and
his effeminate costume, according to a well-known βίου,"
offended even Demetrius of Phalerus, the regent of Athens
under Cassander, who however led a sufficiently luxurious life
himself.

Such a philosophy of life as this, which places the summum
bonum in a well-based love of self, could very well dispense
with the gods, whom Epicurus transferred to the intermundane
regions, because, according to his natural philosophy, he could
not absolutely annihilate them. Agreeing entirely with his
friend on this pot, Menander thought that the gods would
have a life of trouble if they had to distribute good and evil
for every day. It was on this account that the philosopher

tives, and there were still questions with regard to the freedom of the comie stage
(Plutarch Demetr. 12. Meineke Hist. Crit. Com. Gree. p. 436). The Latin come-
dians also occasiunally introduced personal attacks, which were most bitter in the
comedies of Nevius.

1 Strabo XIV. p. 526. Meineke, Menandri et Philemonis fragm., p. χχν.

2 The reader will find characteristic expressions of this luxurious philosophy in
Meineke, Menandri fragm. p. 166. 3 Phedrus, fub., v. 1.

* In a fragment which has recently come to light from the commentary of David
on Aristotle’s Categories. See Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Grec., p. 454-

70 THE NEW COMEDY.

attributed so much to the influence of chance in the creation of
the world and the destinies of mankind. Menander also exalts
Τύχη (Fortune) as the sovereign of the world;' but this no
longer implies the saviour daughter of almighty Zeus, but
merely the causeless, incalculable, accidental combinations of
things in nature and in the life of man.

It was, however, precisely at such a time as this, when all

relations were dislocated or merged in licentiousness, that

comedy possessed a power, which, though widely different from
the angry flashes of the genius of Aristophanes, perhaps pro-
duced in its way more durable effects: this power was the
power of ridicule, which taught people to dread as folly that
which they no longer avoided as vice. This power was the
more effective as it confined its operations to the sphere of the
actual, and did not exhibit the follies which it represented under
the same gigantic and superhuman forms as the old comedy.
The old comedy, in its necessity for invention, created forms in
which it could portray with most prominent features the cha-
racteristics of whole classes and species of men; the new
comedy took its forms, in all their individual peculiarities, from
real life, and did not attempt to signify by them more than
individuals of the particular class.2, On this account more im-
portance was attached by the writers of the new comedy to the
invention of plots, and to their dramatic complication and solu-
tion, which Menander made the leading object in his composi-
tions: for, while the old comedy set its forms in motion in a
very free and unconstrained manner, according as the develop-
ment of the fundamental thought required, the new comedy
was subject to the laws of probability as established by the
progress of ordinary life, and had to invent a story in which all
the views of the persons and all the circumstances of their
actions resulted from the characters, manners, and relations of
the age. The stretch of attention on the part of the spectator
which Aristophanes produced by the continued progression in
the development of the comic ideas of his play was effected in
the new comedy by the confusion and solution of outward dif-

1 Meineke, Menandri fragm., p. 168.
? Hence the exclamation: ὦ Mévavdpe καὶ Ble.

iti Χο . ...

ITS CHARACTER. 71

ficulties in the circumstances represented, and by the personal
interest felt for the particular characters by the spectators,—an
interest closely connected with the illusion of reality.

In this the attentive reader of these observations will readily
have perceived how comedy, thus conducted by Menander and
Philemon, only completed what Euripides had begun on the
tragic stage a hundred years before their time. Euripides, too,
deprived his characters of that ideal grandeur which had been
most conspicuous in the creations of Aischylus, and gave them
more of human weakness, and therefore of apparent indi-
viduality. He also abandoned the foundation of national
principles in ethics and religion on which the old popular
morality of the Greeks had been built up, and subjected all
relations to a dialectical, and sometimes sophistical mode of
reasoning, which very soon led to the lax morality and common
sense doctrines which prevailed in the new comedy. Euripides
and Menander consequently agree so well in their reasonings
and sentences, that in their fragments it would be easy to con-
fuse one with the other; and thus tragedy and comedy, these
two forms of the drama which started from such different be-
ginnings, here meet as it were in one point.’ The form of the
diction also contributed a great deal to this: for as Euripides
lowered the poetic tone of tragedy to the ordinary language of
polished society, in the same way comedy, even the middle,*
but still more the new, relinquished, on the one hand,
the high poetic tone which Aristophanes had aimed at, espe-
cially in Kis choral songs, and, on the other hand, the spirit of
caricature and burlesque which is essentially connected with
the portraiture of his characters: the tone of polished conver-
sation® predominates in all the pieces of the new comedy ; and
in this Menander gave a greater freedom and liveliness to the
recitations of his actors by the looser structure of his sentences
and the weaker connexion of his periods; whereas Philemon’s

1 Philemon was so warm an admirer of Euripides, that he declared he would at
once destroy himself, in order to see Euripides in the other world, provided he
could convince himself that departed spirits preserved their life and understanding.
See Meineke, Men. et Philem. Rel., p. 410.

3 According to Anonymus de Comedia, p. xxviii.

3 This is particularly mentioned by Plutarch (Aristoph. et Menandri compar, c. 2.)

72 THE NEW COMEDY.

pieces, by their more connected and periodic style, were better
suited for the closet than for the stage.’ The Latin comedians,
Plautus, for instance, gave a great deal more of burlesque than
they found in their models, availing themselves perhaps of the
Sicilian comedy of Epicharmus, as well as of the comedy of their
own country. The elevated poetic tone must have been lost
with the choruses, of which we have no sure traces even in the
middle comedy ;? the connexion of lyric and dramatic poetry
was limited to the employment by the actors of lyric measures
of different kinds, and they expressed their feelings at the
moment by singing these lyrical pieces, and accompanying them
with lively gesticulations: in this the model was rather the
monodies of Euripides than the lyrical passages in Aristo-
phanes. ‘

We have now brought down the history of the Attic drama
from Aischylus to Menander, and in naming these two extreme
points of the series through which dramatic poetry developed
itself, we cannot refrain from reminding our readers what a
treasure of thought and life is here unfolded to us; what re-
markable changes were here effected, not only in the forms of.
poetry, but in the inmost recesses of the constitution of the
Greek mind; and what a great and significant portion of the
history of our race is here laid before us in the most vivid
delineations.

1 According to a remark of the so named Demetrius Phaler. de Hlocut., § 193.

2 According to Platonius, the middle comedy had no parabases, because there
was no chorus. The olosicon was quite without choral songs. The new come-
dians, in imitation of the older writers, wrote ΧΟΡΟΣ at the end of the acts; pro-
bably the pause was filled up by the performance of a flute-player. At any rate,
such was the custom at Rome. Evanthius (de Comed., p. lv. in Westerton’s
Terence) seems to mean the same.

73

CHAPTER XXX.

LYRIC AND EPIC POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

§ 1. The Dithyramb becomes the chief form of Athenian lyric poetry. Lasus of
Hermione. ὃ 2. New style ofthe dithyramb introduced by Melanippides. Phi-
loxenus. Cinesias. Phrynis. Timotheus. Polyeidus. § 3. Mode of pro-
ducing the new dithyramb: its contents and character. § 4. Reflective lyric
poetry. ὃ 5. Social and political elegies. The Zyde of Antimachus essentially
different. ὃ 6, Epic poetry. Panyasis, Cheerilus, Antimachus.

§ 1. HE Drama was so well adapted to reflect the thoughts

and feelings of the people of Attica in the mirror of
poetry, that other sorts of metrical composition fell completely
into the background, and for the public in general assumed
the character rather of isolated and momentary gratifications
than that of a poetic expression of prevailing sentiments and
principles,

However, Lyric poetry was improved in a very remarkable
manner, and struck out tones which seized with new power upon
the spirit of the age. This was principally effected by the new
Dithyramb, the cradle and home of which was Athens, before all
the cities of Greece, even though some of the poets who adopted
this form were not born there.

As we have remarked above,' Lasus of Hermione, the rival of
Simonides, and the teacher of Pindar, in those early days ex-
hibited his dithyrambs chiefly at Athens, and even in his poems
the dithyrambic rhythm had gained the greater freedom by
which it was from thenceforth characterized. Still the dithy-
rambs of Lasus were not generically different from those of
Pindar, of which we still possess a beautiful fragment. This
dithyramb was designed for the vernal Dionysia at Athens, and
it really seems to breathe the perfumes and smile with the bright-
ness of spring. The rhythmical structure of the fragment is
bold and rich, and a lively and almost violent motion prevails

1 Chap. XIV. § 14. 2 See above, chap. XIV. § 7.

74 LYRIC AND EPIC POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

in it;' but this motion is subjected to the constraint of fixed
laws, and all the separate parts are carefully incorporated in
the artfully constructed whole. We also see from this frag-
ment that the strophes of the dithyrambic ode were already
made very long; from principles, however, which will be stated
in the sequel, we must conclude that there were antistrophes
corresponding to these strophes.

§ 2. The dithyramb assumed a new character in the hands of
Metanteripes of Melos. He was maternal grandson of the
older Melanippides, who was born about Ol. 65. B.c. 520, and
was contemporary with Pindar ;? the younger and more cele-
brated Melanippides lived for a long period with Perdiccas, king
of Macedon, who reigned from about Ol. 81, 2. B.c. 454, to Ol.
ΟἹ, 2. B.C. 4143 consequently, before and during the greater part
of the Peloponnesian war. The comic poet Pherecrates (who,
like Aristophanes, was in favour of maintaining the old simple
music as an essential part of the old-fashioned morality) con-
siders the corruption of the ancient musical modes as having
commenced with him. Closely connected with this change is
the increasing importance of instrumental music; in conse-
quence of which the fiute-players, after the time of Mela-
nippides, no longer received their hire as mere secondary persons
and assistants, from the poets themselves, but were paid imme-
diately by the managers of the festival.’

Melanippides was followed by Puttoxenvus of Cythera, first his
slave and afterwards his pupil, who is ridiculed by Aristophanes in
his later plays, and especially in the Plutus. He lived, at a later
period, at the court of Dionysius the elder, and is said to have
taken all sorts of liberties with the tyrant, who sometimes in-
dulged in poetry as an amateur; but he had to pay for this dis-

1 The peeonic species of rhythms, to which the ancients especially assign ‘the
splendid,’ (τὸ μεγαλοπρεπές), is the prevailing one in this fragment.

? That the younger Melanippides is the person with whom, according to the cele-
brated verses of Pherecrates, (Plutarch de Musica, 30. Meineke, Fr. Com. Gr.,
vol. ΤΙ, p. 326), the corruption of music begins, is clear, partly from the direct
statement of Suidas, partly from his chronological relation to Cinesias and Phi-
loxenus. The celebrated Melanippides was also the contemporary of Thucydides
(Marcellin. V. Thucyd. § 29), and of Socrates, (Xenoph. Mem., I. 4, ὃ 3.)

3 Plutarch, de Mus. § 30.

4 Aristoph. Plut. 290; and see Schol.

THE DITHYRAMB. 75

tinction by confinement to the stone-quarries at Syracuse, when
the tyrant was in a bad humour. He died Ol. 100, 1. B.c.
380.' His Dithyrambs enjoyed the greatest reputation all over
Greece, and it is remarkable that while Aristophanes speaks of
him as a bold innovator, Antiphanes, the poet of the middle
comedy, praises his music as already the genuine style of music,
and calls Philoxenus himself, ‘a god among men; whereas he
calls the music and lyric poetry of his own time a flowery style
of composition, which adorns itself with foreign melodies.’

In the series of the corrupters of music, Pherecrates, in the
passage already quoted, mentions, next to Melanippides, ΟἸΝΈΒΙΑΒ,
whom Aristophanes also ridicules about the middle of the Pelo-
ponnesian war,* on account of his pompous, and at the same
time empty diction, and also for his rhythmical imnovations.
‘ Our art,’ he there says, ‘ has its origin in the clouds: for the
splendid passages of the dithyrambs must be aerial, and obscure ;
azure-radiant, and wing-wafted.’? Plato‘ designedly brings for-
ward Cinesias as a poet who obviously attached no importance
to making his hearers better, but only sought to please the
greater number: just as his father Meles, who sang to the harp,
had wished only to please the common people, but, as Plato
sarcastically adds, had done just the reverse, and had only
shocked the ears of his audience.

Next to Cynesias, Purynis is arraigned by the personification
of Music, who comes forward as the accuser in the lines of Phe-
recrates, of being one of her worst tormentors, ‘ who had quite
annihilated her with his twistings and turnings, since he had
twelve modes on five strings.’ This Phrynis was a later off-
shoot of the Lesbian school; he was a singer to the harp, who
was born at Mitylene, and won his first victory at the musical
contests which Pericles had introduced at the -Panathenza ;°
he flourished before and during the Peloponnesian war. The

1 Fifty-five years old, Marm. Par. ep. 69.

3 Athen. XIV. p. 643, Ὁ.

8 Birds, 1382. Com. Clouds, 332. Peace, 832.

4 Gorgias, p. 501, D.

δ᾽ Ἐπὶ Καλλίου ἄρχοντος. Schol. Clouds, 976. But no Callias answers to the time
when Pericles was agonothetes, and built the Odeium, (about Ol. 84, Plutarch,
Pericl. 13), and it is probable that we should substitute the archon Callimachus
Ol. 83, 3.) for Callias.

76 LYRIC AND EPIC POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

alteration in the old nomes of Terpander, which originally
formed the conventional basis of harp-music, is ‘attributed
to him.’

Timornevs of Miletus? formed himself after the model of
Phrynis; at a later period he gained the victory over his master
in the musical contests, and raised himself to the highest rank
among dithyrambic poets. He is the last of the musical artists
censured by Pherecrates, and died in extreme old age in OL
105, 4. B.c. 357.2. Although the Ephors at Sparta are said to
have taken from his harp four of its eleven strings, Greece in
general received his innovations in music with the most cordial
approbation ; he was one of the most popular musicians of his
time. The branches of poetry, which he worked out in the
spirit of his own age, were in general the same which Terpander

cultivated 400 years before, namely, Nomes,* Proems, and Hymns. .

There were still some antique forms which he too was obliged
to observe; for instance, the hexameter verse was not quite
given up by Timotheus in his nomes; but he recited them in
the same manner as the Dithyramb, and mixed up this metre
with others.’ The branch of poetry which he chiefly cultivated,
and which gave its colour to all the others, was undoubtedly
the Dithyramb.

Timotheus, too, was worsted, if not before the tribunal of
impartial judges, at least in the favour of the public, by
Potyerpus, whose scholar Philotas also won the prize from
Timotheus in a musical contest.’ Polyeidus was also regarded
as one of those whose artificial innovations were injurious to
music, but he also gained a great reputation among the Greeks,

1 Plutarch, de Mus. 6.

2 See, besides the better known passages, Aristot. Metaphys. A. ἔλαττον, c. 1.

3 Marm. Par. 76. Suidas perhaps places his death most correctly at the age
of 97.

4 Steph. Byz. v. Μίλητος, attributes to him 18 books of νόμοι κιθαρῳδικοὶ, in 8000
verses ; where the expression ἔπη is not to be taken strictly to signify the hexa-
meter, although this metre was mixed up in them.

5 Plut. de Mus. 4. Timotheus’s Nome, ‘the Persians,’ began ; K)\ewdv ἐλευθερίας
τεύχων μέγαν Ἑλλάδι κόσμον, Pausan. VIII., 50, ὃ 3.

6 Atheneus, VIII. p. 352, B. Comp. Plutarch, de Mus. 21. It is clear that he
is not the same as the tragedian and sophist Polyeidus, mentioned in Aristotle’s
Poetic. Aristotle would hardly have given the name ὁ σοφιστὴς to a dithyrambie
poet whose pursuit was chiefly the study of music.

a

EXHIBITION OF THE DITHYRAMB. vd

There was nothing which so much delighted the crowded audi-
ences which flocked to the theatres throughout Greece as the
Dithyrambs of Timotheus and Polyeidus.’

Besides these poets and musicians there was still a long
series of others, among whom we may name Ion of Chios, who
was also a favourite dithyrambic poet ;? Diacoras of Melos,
the notorious sceptic;* the highly-gifted Licymnivs of Chios,
(whose age is not accurately known) ; Crexus, also accused of
innovations ; and Tetestes of Selinus, a poetic opponent of
Melanippides,* who gained a victory at Athens in Ol. 94, 3. B.c.
401. :

§ 3. It is far more important, however, to obtain a clear
conception of the more recent Dithyramb in all its peculiarities.
This we shall be better able to do by first establishing some of
the main points of the question.

With regard to the mode of exhibition, the Dithyrambs at
Athens, during the Peloponnesian war, were still represented by
choruses furnished by the ten tribes for the Dionysian festivals ;
consequently, the dithyrambic poets were also called Cyclic
chorus-teachers :° but the more liberty they gave to the metre,
the more various their rhythmical alterations, so much the more
difficult was the exhibition by means of a complete chorus; and
so much the more common it became to get the Dithyramb
performed by private amateurs.’ The Dithyramb also entirely
gave up the antistrophic repetition of the same metres, and
moved on in rhythms which depended entirely on the humour
and caprice of the poet ;’ it was particularly characterized by
certain runs by way of prelude, which were called ἀναβολαί, and

1 Tn a Cretan decree, (Corp. Inscr. Gr. N. 305,) one Menecles of Teos is praised
for having often played on the harp at Cnossus after the style of Timotheus, Poly-
eidus, and the old Cretan poets (chap. XII. § 9).

2 Comp. chap. VI. § 2.

3 The most important fragments of his lyric poems are given by the Epicurean,
Pheedrus, in the papyri brought from Herculaneum (Herculanensia, ed. Drummond
et Walpole, p. 164).

4 Athen. XIV. p. 616, E, relates, in very pretty verses, a contest between the
two poets, on the question whether Minerva had rejected the tlute-accompani-
ment.

5 Aristoph. Birds, 1403.

6 Aristotle speaks of this alteration, Problem. 19, 15. Comp. Rhetor, 111. 9.

7 ἀπολελυμένα,

78 LYRIC AND EPIC POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

which are much censured by strict judges,’ but doubtless were
listened to with avidity hy the public in general. In this the
poet had nothing to hinder him from passing from one musical
note to another, or from combining various rhythms in the same
poem ; so that at last all the constraints of mere metre seemed
to vanish, and poetry in its very highest flight seemed to meet
the opposite extreme of prose, as the old critics remark.

At the same time the Dithyramb assumed a descriptive, or,
as Aristotle says, a mimetic character? The natural phe-
nomena which it described were imitated by means of tunes
and rhythms, and the pantomimic gesticulations of the actors,
‘(as in the antiquated Hyporcheme) ; and this was very much
aided by a powerful instrumental accompaniment, which sought
to represent with its loud full tones the raging elements, the
voices of wild beasts, and other sounds,*

With regard to the contents or subject of this dithyrambic
poetry, in this it was based upon the compositions of Xenocritus,
Simonides, and other old poets, who had taken subjects for the
Dithyramb from the ancient heroic mythology. The Dithy-
rambs of Melanippides announce this even by their titles, such
as Marsyas, (in which, by a modification of the legend, Athena
invents the flute, and on her throwing it away it is taken up by
Marsyas,) Persephone, and the Danaides. The Cyclops of
Philoxenus was in great repute; in this the poet, who was well
known in Sicily, introduced the beautiful Sicilian story of the
love of the Cyclops Polyphemus for the sea-nymph Galatea,
who on account of the beautiful Acis rejects his suit, till at last
he takes deadly vengeance on his successful rival. From the
verses in Aristophanes in which Philoxenus is parodied,’ we

1 ἡ μακρὰ ἀναβολὴ τῷ ποιήσαντι κακίστη : an hexameter with a peculiar synizesis.

2 This is called μεταβολή. The fragments of the dithyrambic poets consequently
contain also many pieces in simple Doric rhythms.

% Plato (Resp. p. 396) alludes to this imitation of storms, roaring torrents,
lowing herds, &c., in the Dithyrambs. A parasite wittily observed of one of
these storm-dithyrambs of Timotheus, that ‘he had seen greater storms, than
those which Timotheus made, in many a kettle of boiling water.’ Athen. VIII.
p- 338, A.

4 Chap. XIV. ὃ τι. comp. XXT. § 4.

5 Plutus, 290. The songs of the sheep and goats, which the chorus was there
to bleat forth to please Carion, refer to the imitations of these animals in the Dithy-
ramb,

CONTENTS OF THE DITHYRAMB. 79

may pretty well see in what spirit this subject was treated.
The Cyclops was represented as a harmless monster, a good-
natured Caliban, who roams about the mountains followed by
his bleating sheep and goats as if they were his children, and
collects wild herbs in his wallet, and then half-drunk lays him-
self down to sleep in the midst of his flocks. In his love he
becomes even poetical, and comforts himself for his rejection
with songs which he thinks quite beautiful; even his lambs
sympathize with his sorrows and bleat longingly for the fair
Galatea.’ In this whole poem (the subject of which Theocritus
took up at a later period and with better taste formed it into
an Idyll*) the ancients discerned» covert allusions to the con-
nexion of the poet with Dionysius, the poetizing tyrant of Sicily,
who is said to have deprived Philoxenus of the object of his
love. If we add to this the statement that Timotheus’ Dithy-
ramb, ‘the travails of Semele,’* passed with the ancients for
an indecent and unimaginative representation of such a scene,’
we shall have the means of forming a satisfactory judgment of
the general nature of this new Dithyramb. There was no unity
of thought; no one tone pervading the whole poem, so as to
preserve in the minds of the hearers a consistent train of feelings;
no subordination of the story to certain ethical ideas ; no arti-
ficially constructed system of verses regulated by fixed laws ;
but a loose and wauton play of lyrical sentiments, which were
set in motion by the accidental impulses of some mythical story,
and took now one direction, now another ; preferring, however,
to seize on such points as gave room for an immediate imitation
in tones, and admitting a mode of description which luxuriated
in sensual charms. Many monodies in the later tragedies of
Euripides, such as Aristophanes ridicules in the Frogs, have
this sensual colouring, and in this want of a firm basis to rest
upon have quite the character of the contemporary Dithyramb,
of which they perhaps furnish a most vivid picture.

1 Hermesianax, FPragm. v. 74.

3 Theocrit. Jd. xi., where the reader should consult the scholia.

8 Σεμέλης ὠδίς.

4 Of this the witty Stratonicus said, ‘could she have cried out more piteously,
if she had been bringing forth not a God, but a common mechanic?’ Athen. VIII.
p. 352, A. Ina similar spirit Polyeidus made Atlas a shepherd in Libya. Tzetz.
on Lycophr. 879.

80 LYRIC AND EPIC POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

§ 4. From these productions of Euripides which intrude on
the domain of lyric poetry, we may also observe that, in addition
to this pictorial delineation of sensible impressions, a species of
reflexion which set about analysing and dissecting everything,
and a sort of transcendental reasoning, had established them-
selves also in the lyric poetry of the time. The Dithyramb
furnished less room for this than the other more tranquil forms
of poetry. We call attention especially to the abstract subjects
introduced into the encomiastic poetry, which was exhibited
under the form of Peans, such as Health, and others of the same
kind, which were in fashion at the time. We have several
verses of a similar poem by Licymnius,' most of which are
contained in a short pean on health, by AripHron, which has
been preserved, and in which we are told with perfect truth,
but at the same time in the most insipid manner, that neither
wealth, nor power, nor any other human bliss, can be properly
enjoyed without health.2. The Peean or scolinm on ‘ Virtue’
by the great Arisrorie is no doubt lyric in form, but quite as
abstract as these in its composition. Virtue, at the beginning
of the ode, is ostentatiously represented with all the warmth of
inspiration as a young beauty, to die for whom is considered in
Hellas as an enviable lot: and the series of mighty heroes who
had suffered and died for her is closed by a transition, which,
though abrupt, no doubt proceeded from the deepest feelings of
Aristotle, to the praise of his noble-minded friend Hermeias, the
ruler of Atarneus. .

§ 5. The Elegy still continued a favourite poetical amusement
while Attic literature flourished ; it remained true to its original
destination, to enliven the banquet and to shed the gentle light
of a higher poetic feeling over the convivialities of the feast.
Consequently, the fragments of elegies of this time by Ion of
Chios, Dionysius of Athens, Evenus the sophist of Paros, and
Caitias of Athens, all speak much of wine, of the proper mede
of drinking, of dancing and singing at banquets, of the cottabus-
game, which young people were then so fond of, and of other
things of the same kind, and they took as their subject the joys

1 Sextus Empiricus adv. Mathematicos, p. 447 ¢.
2 Athen. XV. p. 702, A. Boeckh. Corp: Inscript. I. p. 477, seqg. Schneidewin
Delectus poes. Gr. eleg. iamb. melice, p. 450.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ELEGIES. 81

of the banquet and the right measure to be observed at it.
This elegiac poetry proceeds on the principle that we should
enjoy ourselves in society, combining the pleasures of the senses
with intellectual gratifications, and not forgetting our higher
calling in the midst of such enjoyments. ‘ To drink and sport
and be right-minded ’—is the expression of Ion.’ As however
the thoughts easily passed from the festal board to the general
social and political interests of the time, the elegy had political
features also, and statesmen often expressed in this form their
Opinions on the course to be adopted for Greece in general and
for the different republics in particular. This must have been
the case with the elegies of Dionysius, who was a considerable
statesman of the time of Pericles, and led the Athenians who
settled at Thurii, in the great Hellenic migration to that place.
The Athenians by way of joke called him ‘ the man of copper,’
because he had proposed the introduction of a copper coinage
in addition to the silver money which had been exclusively used
before that time. It is to be wished that we had the continu-
ation of that elegy of Dionysius which ran thus: ‘ Come here,
and listen to good intelligence: adjust your cup-battles, give all
your attention to me, and listen.?? The political tendency
appeared still more clearly in the elegies of Crirras, the son of
Callzeschrus, in which he said bluntly that he had recommended
in the public assembly that Alcibiades should be recalled and
had drawn up the decree. The predilection for Lacedemon,
which Critias had imbibed as one of the Eupatride and as a
friend of Socrates, declares itself in his commendations of the
old customs which the Spartans kept up at their banquets: ἡ
nevertheless we have no right to suppose in this an early mani-
festation of the ill-affected and treasonable opinions with regard
to the democracy of Athens, which only gradually and through
the force of circumstances developed themselves in the character
of Critias with the fearful consequences which often convert a
single false step of the politician into a disastrous and criminal
progress for the rest of his life.

1 πίνειν καὶ παίζειν καὶ τὰ δίκαια φρονεῖν. 2 Athen. XV. p. 669, Β.
3 Plutarch, Alcib. 33. 4. Athen. Χ, p. 432, Ὁ.
Vou. 11. G

82 LYRIC AND EPIC POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

_ From this elegiac poetry, which was cultivated in the circle
of Attic training, we must carefully distinguish the elegies of
Antimacuvs of Colophon, which we may term a revival of the
love-sorrows of Mimnermus. Antimachus, who flourished after
Ol. 94, B.c. 404, was in general a reviver of ancient poetry, one
who, keeping aloof from the stream of the new-fashioned literature,
applied himself exclusively to his own studies, and on that very
account found little sympathy among the people of his own time,
as indeed appears from the well-known story that, when he was
reciting his Thebais, all his audience left the room with the
single exception of Plato. His elegiac poem was called Lyde,
and was dedicated to the remembrance of a Lydian maiden whom
Antimachus had loved and early lost.’ The whole work, therefore,
was a lamentation for her loss, which doubtless gained life and
warmth from the longing and eyer-recurring recollections of the
poet. Itis true that Antimachus, as we are told, availed himself
largely of mythical materials in the execution of his poem, but if
he had only adorned the general thought, that his love had caused
him sorrow, with examples of the similar destiny of others, his
poem could not possibly have gained the reputation which it en-
joyed in ancient times.

§ 6. Here we must resume the thread of our history of Epic
poetry, which we dropped with Pisander (chapter IX.). Epic
poetry, however, did not slumber in the meantime, but found an
utterance in Panyasis of Halicarnassus, the uncle of Herodotus
(fl. Ol. 78, B.c. 468°) in Cua@ritus of Samos, a contemporary of
Lysander (about Ol. 94, B.c. 404), and in Antimacuus of Co-
lophon, just mentioned, whose younger days coincide with the
old age of Cheerilus ;* these poets, however, were received by the
public with an indifference fully equal to the general attention
and admiration which the Homeric poems had excited. The

1 According to the passage in Hermesianax.

? This date is given by Suidas ; somewhat later, (about ΟἹ. 82,) Panyasis was
put to death by Lygdamis, the tyrant of Halicarnassus, whom Herodotus afterwards
expelled.

3 When Lysander was in Samos as the conqueror of Athens, Cheerilus was then
with him, and in the musical contests which Lysander established there, Antima-
chus, son of Niceratus, from Heraclea, then a young man, was one of the defeated
poets. Plutarch, Lysander, 18.

EN Ee eS χόω νων

EPIC POETRY. 83

Alexandrian school was the first to bring them into notice, and
the critics of this school placed Panyasis and Antimachus,
together with Pisander, in the first rank of epic poets. On this
account also we have proportionally few fragments of these poets;
most of the citations from them are made only for the sake of
learned illustrations; but little has come down to us, which
could give us a conception of their general style and art.

Panyasis comprised in his Hercules a great mass of mythical
legends, and was chiefly occupied with painting in romantic
colours the adventures of this hero in the most distant regions
of the world. ‘The description of the mighty feats of this hero,
of his athletic strength and invincible courage, was no doubt
relieved or softened down by pictures of a very different kind ;
such as those in which Panyasis gave life to a feast where
Hercules was present, by recounting the pleasant speeches of
the valiant banqueters, or painted in warm colours the thraldom
of Hercules to Omphale which brought him to Lydia.

In a great epic poem called Jonica, Panyasis took for his
subject the early history of the Ionians in Asia Minor, and
their wanderings and settlements under the guidance of Neleus
and others of the descendants of Codrus.

Cueritus of Samos formed the grand plan of exalting in
epic poetry the greatest, or at least the most joyful event of
Greek history, the expedition of Xerxes, king of Persia, against
Greece. We could not blame this choice, even though we con-
sidered the historical epos, properly so called, an unnatural
production. But the Persian war was in its leading features
an event of such simplicity and grandeur,—the despot of the
East leading against the free republics of Greece countless
hosts of people who had no will of their own,—and besides
this, the subordinate details had been cast into such darkness
and obscurity by the infinite multiplication of stories among
the Greeks, that it gave room for an absolutely poetic treat-
ment. If Aristotle is right in asserting that poetry 15 more
philosophical than history, because it contains more general
truth, it must be admitted that events like the Persian war
place themselves on the same footing with poetry, or with a
history naturally poetical. Whether Cheerilus, however, con-
ceived this subject in all its grandeur, and considered it with

G 2

84 LYRIC AND EPIC POETRY DURING THIS PERIOD.

equal liveliness and vigour in its higher and lower relations,
cannot now be determined, as the few fragments refer to par-
ticulars only, and generally to subordinate details.’ It is a bad
symptom that Cherilus should complain, in the first verses of
his poem, that the subjects of epic poetry were already ex-
hausted : this could not have been his motive if he had under-
taken to paint the greatest deeds of the Greeks. But, in general,
a striving after novelty seems to have produced marked effects
upon his works, both in general and in the details. Aristotle
finds fault with his comparisons as far-fetched and obscure ;*
and even the fragments have been sometimes justly censured
for their forced and artificial tone.*.

The Thebais of ANtIMAcHUs was formed on a wide and com-
prehensive plan; there was mythological lore in the execution
of the details, and careful study in the choice of expressions ;
but the whole poem was deficient, according to the judgment of
the ancient critics, in that natural connexion which arrests and
detains the attention, and in that charm of poetic feeling which
no laborious industry or elaborate refinement can produce.’
Hadrian, therefore, remained true to his predilection for every-
thing showy, affected, and unnatural, when he placed Anti-
machus before Homer, and attempted an epic imitation of the
style of the former.°

1 Tt is clear that the Athenians did not pay Cheerilus a golden stater for every
verse, as has been inferred from Suidas: it is obvious that this is a confusion with
the later Cheerilus, whom Alexander rewarded in so princely a manner. Horat,
Ep. IL. 1, 233.

2°A μάκαρ ὅστις ἔην κεῖνον χρόνον ἴδρις ἀοιδῶν
Μουσάων θεράπων, ὅτ᾽ ἀκήρατος ἣν ἔτι λειμών.
νῦν δ᾽ ὅτε πάντα δέδασται, ἔχουσι δὲ πείρατα τέχναι,
ὕστατοι αὖτε δρόμου καταλειπόμεθ᾽" οὐδέ πῃ ἔστιν
πάντῃ παπταίνοντα νεοζυγὲς ἅρμα πελάσσαι.
These verses are preserved in the Scholiast to Aristot. Rhet. III. 14, § 4, in Gais-
ford’s Animadversiones (Oxon. 1820). Compare Naeke’s Cherilus, p. 104.
3 Aristot. Topic. VIII. 1.
4A. F. Naeke, Cherili Samii que supersunt. Lips. 1817.
5 Antimachi Colophonii reliquie, ed. Schellenberg, p. 38, seq.
5 Spartianus in the Life of Hadrian, c. 15. The title of Hadrian’s work is now
known to have been Catachane ; the poem probably had some resemblance to the
Catonis Dire of Valerius,

85

CHAPTER XXXI.

POLITICAL ORATORY AT ATHENS PREVIOUSLY TO THE
INFLUENCE OF RHETORIC.

§ 1. Importance of prose at this period. § 2. Oratory at Athens rendered neces
sary by the democratical form of government. § 3. Themistocles; Pericles:
power of their oratory. § 4. Characteristics of their oratory in relation to their
opinions and modes of thought. § 5. Form and style of their speeches.

δι 1. E have seen both tragedy and comedy im their latter
days gradually sinking into prose; and this has
shown us that prose was the most powerful instrument in the
literature of the time, and has made us the more curious to in-
vestigate its tendency, its progress, and its development.

The cultivation of prose belongs almost entirely to the period
which intervened between the Persian war and the time of
Alexander the Great. Before this time every attempt at prose
composition was either so little removed from the colloquial
style of the day, as to forfeit all claim to be considered as a
written language, properly so called: or else owed all its charms
and splendour to an imitation of the diction and the forms of
words found in poetry, which attained to completeness and
maturity many hundred years before the rise of a prose
literature.

In considering the history of Attic prose, we propose to give
a view of the general character of the works of the prose writers,
and their relation to the circumstances of the Athenian people,
to their intellectual energy and elasticity, and to the mixture of
reason and passion which was so conspicuous among them. But
it is obvious that it will not be possible to do this without care-
fully examining the contents, the subjects, and the practical and
theoretical objects of these works.

We may distinguish three epochs in the general history of
Attic prose, from Pericles to Alexander the Great: the first that
of Pericies himself, AntrpHon, and Tuucypipss; the second,
that of Lystas, Isocrarzs, and Piato; the third, that of De.

86 POLITICAL ORATORY AT ATHENS.

MOSTHENES, AscuinEs, and DemaprEs. The sequel will show
why we have selected these names.

Two widely different causes co-operated in introducing the
first epoch :—Athenian politics and Sicilian sophistry. We
must first take a view of these two causes.

§ 2. Since the time of Solon, the most distinguished states-
men of Athens had formed some general views with regard to
the destination of their native city, based upon a profound con-
sideration of the external relations and internal resources of
Attica, and the peculiar capabilities of the inhabitants. An
extension of the democracy, industry, and trade, and, above all,
the sovereignty of the sea, were the primary objects which those
statesmen proposed to themselves. Some peculiar views were
transmitted through a series of statesmen,’ from Solon to
Themistocles and Pericles, and were from time to time further
developed and extended; and though an opposite party in
politics. (that of Aristides and Cimon) endeavoured to set
bounds to this development, the point for which they contended
did not affect any one of the leading principles which guided the
other party; they only wished to moderate the suddenness and
violence of the movement.

This deep reflection on: and clear perception of what was
needful for Athens, imparted to the speeches of men like
Themistocles and Pericles a power and solidity which made a
far deeper impression on the people of Athens than any par-
ticular proposal or counsel could have done. Public speaking
had been common in Greece from the earliest times; long
before popular assemblies had gained the sovereign power by
the establishment of democracy, the ancient kings had been in
the habit of addressing their people, sometimes with that natural
eloquence which Homer ascribes to Ulysses, at other times, like

1See Plutarch, Themist.2. Themistocles studied as a young man under Mne-
siphilus, who makes such a distinguished appearance in Herod. VIII. 57, and
who had devoted himself to the so called σοφία, which, according to Plutarch,
consisted in political capacity and practical understanding, and which had descended
from Solon. ’

2 Τοῦ δέοντος, an expression which was very common at Athens in the time of
Pericles, and denoted whatever was expedient under the existing circumstances
of the state,

THEMISTOCLES. 87

Menelaus, with concise but persuasive diction: Hesiod assigns
to kings a muse of their own,—Calliope—by whose aid they
were enabled to speak convincingly and persuasively in the
popular assembly and from the seat of judgment. With the
further development of republican constitutions after the age
of Homer and Hesiod, public officers and demagogues without
number had spoken in the public meetings, or in the deliberative
councils and legislative committees of the numerous independent
states, and no doubt they often spoke eloquently and wisely ;
but these speeches did not survive the particular occasion which
called them forth: they were wasted on the air without leaving
behind them a more lasting effect than would have been pro-
duced by a discourse of common life; and in this whole period
it seems never to have been imagined that oratory could pro-
duce effects more lasting than the particular occurrence which
gave occasion for a display of it, or that it was capable of
exerting a ruling influence over all the actions and inclinations
of a people. Even the lively and ingenious Ionians were dis-
tinguished at the flourishing epoch of their literature for an
amusing style, adapted to such narratives as might be com-
municated in private society, rather than for the more powerful
eloquence of the public assembly: at least Herodotus, whose
history may be considered as belonging to Ionian literature,
though he is fond of introducing dialogues and short speeches,
never incorporates with his history the popular harangues which
are so remarkable in Thucydides. It is unanimously agreed
among the ancients that Athens was the native soil of oratory,’
and as the works of Athenian orators alone have come down to
us, so also we may safely conclude that the ruder oratory, not
designed for literary preservation, but from which oratory, as a
branch of literature, arose, was cultivated in a much higher
degree among the Athenians than in all the rest of Greece.

§ 3. Tuemistocies, who with equal courage and genius had
laid the foundations of the greatness of Athens at the most
dangerous and difficult crisis of her history, was not dis-
tinguished for eloquence, so much as for the wisdom of his plans,
and the energy with which he carried them out; nevertheless,

1 Studium eloquentie propriuwm Athenarum, Cicero, Brutus, XIII.

88 POLITICAL ORATORY AT ATHENS.

it is universally agreed that he was in the highest degree
eapable of unfolding his views, and of recommending them by
argument.’ The oratory of Prricies occupies a much more
prominent position. The power and dominion of Athens, though
continually assailed by new enemies, seemed at last to have
acquired some stability; it was time to survey the advantages
which had been gained, and to become acquainted with the prin-
ciples which had led to their acquisition and might contribute
to their increase: the question too arose, what use should be
made of this dominion over the Greeks of the islands and the
coasts, which it had cost so much trouble to obtain, and of the
revenues which flowed into Athens in such abundant streams.
It is manifest, from the whole political career of Pericles, that
on the one hand he presupposed in his people a power of
governing themselves, and on the other hand that he wished to
prevent the state from becoming a mere stake to be played for
by ambitious demagogues: for he favoured every institution
which gave the poorer citizens a share in the government; he
encouraged everything which might contribute to extend edu-
cation and knowledge; and by his astonishing expenditure on
works of architecture and sculpture, he gave the people a decided
fondness for the grand and beautiful. And thus the appearance
of Pericles on the bema (which he purposely reserved for great
occasions’) was not intended merely to aid the passing of some
law, but was at the same time calculated to infuse a noble
spirit into the general politics of Athens, to guide the views of
the Athenians in regard to their external relations and all the
difficulties of their position; and it was the wish of this true
friend of the people that all this might long survive himself.
This is obviously the opinion of Thucydides, whom we may con-
sider as in many respects a worthy disciple of the school of
Pericles ; and this is the representation which he has given us
of the oratory of that statesman in the three speeches (all of
them delivered on important occasions) which he has put into
his mouth. This wonderful triad of speeches forms a beautiful

1 Not to mention other authorities, Lysias (Epitaph. XLII.) says that he was
Ἱκανώτατος εἰπεῖν καὶ γνῶναι καὶ πρᾶξαι.

2 Plutarch, Pericles VII.

PERICLES. 89

whole, which is perfect and complete in itself. The first speech’
proves the necessity of a war with the Peloponnesians, and the
probability that it will be successful: the second,’ delivered im-
mediately after the first successes obtained in the war, under
the form of a funeral oration, confirms the Athenians in their
mode of living and acting; it is half an apology for, half a
panegyric upon Athens: it is full of a sense of truth and of
noble self-reliance, tempered with moderation; the third,’ de-
livered after the calamities which had befallen Athens, rather
through the plague than through the war, and which had
nevertheless made the people vacillate in their resolutions,
offers the consolation most worthy of a noble heart, namely,
that up to that time fortune, on which no man can count, had
deceived them, but they had not been misled by their own cal-
culations and convictions; and that these would never deceive
them if they did not allow themselves to be led astray by some
unforeseen accidents.‘

§ 4. No speech of Pericles has been preserved in writing.
It may seem surprising that no attempt was made to write
down and preserve, for the benefit of the present and future
generations, works which every one considered admirable, and
which were regarded as, in some respects, the most perfect
specimens of oratory.’ The only explanation of this that can
be offered is, that in those days a speech was not considered as
possessing any value or interest, save in reference to the par-
ticular practical object for which it was designed: it had never
occurred to people that speeches and poems might be placed in
one class, and both preserved, without reference to their sub-
jects, on account of the skill with which the subjects were treated,
and the general beauties of the form and composition.’ Only

1 Thucyd. I., 140—144. 3 Thucyd. 11. 35—46. 3 Thucyd. II. 60.—64.

4 A speech of Pericles, in which he took a general survey of the military power
and resources of Athens, is given by Thucydides (II. 13,) indirectly and in outline
because this was not an opportunity for unfolding a train of leading ideas,

5 Plato, though not very partial to Pericles, nevertheless considers him as
τελεώτατος els Thy ῥητορικήν, and refers for the cause to his acquaintance with the
speculations of Anaxagoras, Phedr. 270. Cicero, in his Brutus XII., calls him
‘oratorem prope perfectum,’ only to leave something to be said for the other
orators.

® [All the speeches which have been preserved to us from antiquity have been

90 POLITICAL ORATORY AT ATHENS.

a few emphatic and nervous expressions of Pericles were kept
in remembrance; but a general impression of the grandeur and
copiousness of his oratory long prevailed among the Greeks.
We are enabled, partly by this long prevalent impression, which
is mentioned even by later writers, and partly by the connexion
between Pericles and the other old Attic orators, as also with
Thucydides, to form a clear conception of his style of speaking,
without drawing much upon our imagination.

The primary characteristic of the oratory of Pericles, and
those who most resembled him is, that their speeches are full of
thoughts concisely expressed. Unaccustomed to continued ab-
straction, and unwilling to indulge in trivial reasonings, their
powers of reflection seized on all the circumstances of the world
around them with fresh and unimpaired vigour, and, assisted by
abundant experience and acute observations, brought the light
of their clear general conceptions to bear upon every subject
which they took up. Cicero characterizes Pericles, Alcibiades,
and Thucydides, (for he rightly reckons the two latter among
the orators) by the epithets ‘ subtle, acute, and concise,’’ and
distinguishes between them and the somewhat younger genera-
tion of Critias, Theramenes, and Lysias, who had also, he says,
retained some of the sap and life-blood of Pericles,’ but had
spun the thread of their discourse rather more liberally.’

With regard to the opinions of Pericles, we know that they
were remarkable for the comprehensive views of public affairs
on which they were based. The majesty for which Pericles

preserved by the orators themselves. Pericles appears to have made no record of
his speeches ; and probably he would have considered it degrading, in his eminent
position, to place himself on the footing of a A\oyoypddos.—Lditor.}

1 He says subtiles, acuti, breves, sententiis magis quam verbis abundantes, by which
he means, ‘skilful in the choice of words, and in the distinct expression of every
thought’ (subtiles), ‘refined in their ideas’ (acuti), ‘concise’ (breves), ‘and with
more thoughts than words.’

3 Retinebant illum Periclis succum.

8 De Orator. ΤΙ, 22. In the Brutus, c. VII., he gives a rather different classifi-
cation of the old orators. In the latter work he classes Alcibiades along with
Critias and Theramenes, and says the style of their oratory may be gathered from
Thucydides ; he calls them grandes verbis, crebri sententiis, compressione rerum breves,
et ob eam causam subobscuri. Critias is described by Philostratus, Sophist. I. τό, and
still better by Hermogenes, περὶ ἰδεῶν, (in Walz, Rhet. Greci. L. IIL., p. 388): and
we may infer that he stood, in regard to style, between Antiphon and Lysias.

SPEECHES OF PERICLES. 91

was so distinguished, and which gained for him the appellation
of ‘ the Olympian,’ consisted mostly in the skill and ability with
which he referred all common occurrences to the general prin-
ciples and bold ideas, which he had derived from his noble and
exalted view of the destiny of Athens. Accordingly, Plato says
of Pericles, that in addition to his natural abilities, he had
acquired an elevation of mind, and a habit of striving after
definite objects.’ It was on this account, too, that his opinions
took such a firm hold of his hearers ; according to the metaphor
of Eupolis—they remained fixed in the mind, like the sting of
the bee.

§ 5. It was because the thoughts of Pericles were so striking,
so entirely to the purpose, and at the same time so grand, and
we may add it was on this account alone, that his speeches pro-
duced so deep and lasting an impression. The sole object of
the oratory of Pericles was to produce conviction, to give a per-
manent bias to the mind of the people. It was alien from his
intentions to excite any sudden and transient burst of passion
by working onthe emotions of the heart. The whole history
of Attic oratory teaches us that there could not be in the
speeches of Pericles the slightest employment of those means
by which the orators of a later age used to set in motion the
violent and unruly impulses of the multitude. To judge from
the descriptions which have been given of the manner of Pericles
when he ascended the bema, it was tranquil, with hardly any
change of feature, with calm and dignified gestures; his gar-
ments were undisturbed by oratorical gesticulations of any kind,
and the tone and loudness of his voice were equable and sus-
tained... We may conceive that the frame of mind which this
delivery expressed, and which it excited in the hearers, was in
harmony and unison with it. Pericles had no wish to gratify
the people otherwise than by ministering to their improvement
and benefit. He never condescended to flatter them. Great as
was his idea of the resources and high destinies of Athens, he never
feared in particular cases to tell them even the harshest truths.

1 Plato, Phadrus, p. 270: τὸ ὑψηλόνουν τοῦτο καὶ πάντῃ τελεσιουργὸν. .. ὃ
Περικλῆς πρὸς τὸ εὐφυὴς εἶναι ἐκτήσατο. The τελεσιουργὸν denotes, according to
the context, the striving after a great fixed object.

1 Plutarch, Pericl. V.

92 POLITICAL ORATORY AT ATHENS.

When Pericles declaimed against the people, this was thought,
according to Cicero, a proof of his affection towards them, and
produced a pleasing impression ;‘ even when his own safety was
threatened, he was content to wait till they had an opportunity
of becoming convinced of his innocence, and he never sought to
produce this conviction otherwise than by a clear and energetic
representation of the truth, studiously avoiding any appeal to
transient emotions and feelings. He was just as little anxious

to amuse or entertain the populace. Pericles never indulged in.

a smile while speaking from the bema.? His dignity never
stooped to merriment.* All his public appearances were
marked by a sustained earnestness of manner.

Some traditional particulars and the character of the time
enable us also to form an opinion of the diction of the speeches
of Pericles. He employed the language of common life, the
vernacular idiom of Attica, even more than Thucydides : but his
accurate discrimination of meanings gave his words a subtlety
and pregnancy which was a main ingredient in the nervous
energy of his style. Although there was more of reasoning
than of imagination in his speeches, he had no difficulty in
giving a vivid and impressive colouring to his language by the
use of striking metaphors and comparisons, and as the prose of
the day was altogether unformed, by so doing, he could not help
expressing himself poetically. A good many of these figurative
expressions and apophthegms in the speeches of Pericles have
been preserved, and especially by Aristotle: as when he said of
the Samians, that ‘they were like little children who cried when
they took their food ;’ or when at the funeral of a number of
young persons who had fallen in battle, he used the beautiful
figure, that ‘the year had lost its spring.’ ®

1 Cicero, de Orat. III. 34.

2 Plutarch, Pericl. 5: προσώπου σύστασις ἄθρυπτος els γέλωτα.

3 Summa auctoritas sine omni hilaritate, Cic. de Offic. 1. 30.

4 This appears from the fact mentioned near the end of chap. XX VII.
5 Aristotle, Rhetor. I. 7; III. 4, το.

"
a τ

93

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE RHETORIC OF THE SOPHISTS.

8 τ. Profession of the Sophists: essential elements of their doctrines. The
principles of Protagoras. ὃ 2. Opinions of Gorgias. Pernicious effects of his
doctrines, especially as they were carried out by his disciples. ὃ 3. Important
services of the Sophists in forming a prose style: different tendencies of the
Sicilian and other Sophists in this respect. ὃ 4. The rhetoric of Gorgias. ὃ 5.
His forms of expression.

δι. ΠῊΕ impulse to a further improvement of the prose

style proceeded immediately from the Sophists, who,
in general, exercised a greater influence on the culture of the
Greek mind than any other class of men, the ancient poets
alone excepted. .

The Sophists were, as their name indicates, persons who
made knowledge their profession, and who undertook to impart
it to every one who was willing to place himself under their
guidance. The philosophers of the Socratic school reproached
them with being the first to sell knowledge for money; and
such was the case; for they not only demanded admittance-
money from those who came to hear their public lectures (em-
δείξεις),; but also undertook for a considerable sum fixed before-
hand, to give young men a complete sophistical education, and
not to dismiss them till they were thoroughly instructed in their
art. At that time a thirst for knowledge was so great in Greece,”
that not only in Athens, but also in the oligarchies of Thessaly,
hearers and pupils flocked to them in crowds; the arrival in
any city of one of the greater sophists, Gorgias, Protagoras, or
Hippias, was celebrated as a festival; and these men acquired
riches such as art and science had never before earned among
the Greeks.

Not only the outward profession, but also the peculiar doc-

1 There were wide differences in the amounts paid on these occasions. The
admission-fee for some lectures was a drachma, for others fifty drachme.
* Comp. the remark in chap. XX VIL, ὃ 5.

94 THE RHETORIC OF THE SOPHISTS.

trines of the Sophists were, on the whole, one and the same,
though they admitted of certain modifications of greater or less
importance. If we consider these doctrines philosophically,
they amounted to a denial or renunciation of all true science.
Philosophy had then just completed the first stage of her
career: she had boldly undertaken to solve the abstrusest
questions of speculation, and the widely different answers which
had been returned to some of those questions, had all produced
conviction, and obtained many staunch supporters. The dif-
ference between the results thus obtained, although the grounds
of this difference had not been investigated, must of itself have
awakened a doubt as to the possibility of any real knowledge
regarding the hidden nature of things. Accordingly, nothing
was more likely than that every flight of speculation should be
succeeded by an epoch of scepticism, in which the universality
of all science would be doubted or denied. That all knowledge
is suljective, that it is true only for the individual, was the
meaning of the celebrated saying’ of Proracoras of Abdera,
who made his appearance at Athens in the time of Pericles,’
and for a long time enjoyed a great reputation there, till at last a
reaction was caused by the bold scepticism of his opinions, and
he was banished from Athens and his books were publicly
burnt.2 Agreeing with Heraclitus in regard to the doctrine
of a perpetual motion and of a continual change in the im-
pressions and perceptions of men, he deduced from this that the
individual could know nothing beyond these ever varying per-
ceptions ; consequently, that whatever appeared to be, was so
for the individual. According to this doctrine, opposite opinions
on the same subject might be equally true; and if an opinion
were only supported by a momentary appearance of truth, this
was sufficient to make it true for the moment. Hence, it was
one of the great feats which Protagoras and the other Sophists
professed to perform, to be able to speak with equal plausibility

1 Πάντων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος.

5 About Ol. 84. B.0. 444, according to the chronology of Apollodorus.

8 Protagoras was prosecuted for atheism and expelled from Athens, on the
accusation of Pythodorus, one of the council of the Four-hundred: this would be
in Ol. 92, 1. or 2. B.C. 411, if the event happened during the time of the Four-
hundred, but this is by no means established.

GORGIAS. 95

for and against the same position; not in order to discover the
truth, but in order to show the nothingness of truth. It was
not, however, the intention of Protagoras to deprive virtue, as
well as truth, of its reality: but he reduced virtue to a mere
state or condition of the subject,—a set of impressions and
feelings which rendered the subject more capable of active use-
fulness. Of the gods, he said at the very beginning of the book
which caused his banishment from Athens: ‘ With regard to the
gods, I cannot determine whether they are or are not; for there
are many obstacles in the way of this inquiry—the uncertainty
of the matter, and the shortness of human life.’

§ 2. Goreras, of Leontini, in Sicily, who visited Athens for
the first time in Ol. 88, 2. B.c. 427, as an ambassador from his
native town, belonged to an entirely different part of the Hel-
lenic world, had different teachers, and proceeded from an older
philosophical school than Protagoras, but yet there was a great
correspondence between the pursuits of these two men; and
from this we may clearly see how strongly the spirit of the age
must have inclined to the form and mode of speculation which
was common to them both. Gorgias employed the dialectical
method of the Eleatic school, but arrived at an opposite result
by means of it: while the Eleatic philosophers directed all their
efforts towards establishing the perpetuity and unity of existence,
Gorgias availed himself of the methods and even of some of the
conclusions, which Zeno and Melissus had applied to such a
widely different object, in order to prove that nothing exists:
that even if anything did exist, it would not be cognizable, and
even if it both existed and were cognizable, it could not be
conveyed and communicated by words. The result was, that
absolute knowledge was unattainable ; and that the proper end
of instruction was to awaken in the pupil’s mind such concep-
tions as are suitable to his own purposes and interests. The
chief distinction between Gorgias and the other Sophists con-
sisted in the frankness with which he admitted, that he promised
and professed nothing else than to make his scholars apt rheto-
ricians; and the ridicule with which he treated those of his
colleagues who professed to teach virtue, a peculiarity which
Gorgias shared with all the other Sophists of Sicily. The
Sophists in the mother country, on the other hand, endeavoured

96 THE RHETORIC OF THE SOPHISTS.

to awaken useful thoughts, and to teach the principles of prac-
tical philosophy: thus Hrerias of Elis endeavoured to season
his lessons with a display of multifarious knowledge, and may
be regarded as the first Polyhistor among the Greeks:’ and
Propicus of Ceos, perhaps the most respectable among the
Sophists, used to present lessons of morality under an agreeable
form: such a moral lesson was the well-known allegory of the
choice of Hercules.

In general, however, the labours of the Sophists were preju-
dicial alike to the moral condition of Greece, and to the serious
pursuit of knowledge. The national morality which drew the
line between right and wrong, though not perhaps according to
the highest standard, yet at any rate with honest views, and
what was of most importance, with a sort of instinctive cer-
tainty, had received a shock from the boldness with which
philosophy had handled it: and could not but be altogether
undermined by a doctrine which destroyed the distinction he-
tween truth and falsehood. And though Protagoras and Gorgias
shrank from declaring that virtue and religion were nothing but
empty illusions, their disciples and followers did so most openly,
when the liberty of speculation was completely emancipated
from all the restraints of traditionary opinions. In the course
of the Peloponnesian war, a class of society was formed at
Athens, which was not without influence on the course of affairs,
and whose creed was, that justice and belief in the gods were
but the inventions of ancient rulers and legislators, who gave
them currency in order to strengthen their hold on the common
herd, and assist them in the business of government: they some-
times gave this opinion with this far more pernicious variation,
that laws were made by the majority of weaker men for their
protection, whereas nature had sanctioned the right of the
strongest, so that the stronger party did but use his right when
he compelled the weaker to minister to his pleasure as far as
he could. These are the doctrines which Plato in his Gorgias

1 Plato often speaks of his acquaintance with physics and astronomy: he also
inquired after genealogies, colonies, and ‘antiquities in general.’ Hippias. Maj.
p. 285. Some fragments of his treatises on political antiquities have been pre-
served: probably derived from his συναγωγή. Bickh. Pref. ad Pindari Scholia,
p- xxi. His list of the Olympic victors was also a remarkable work.

STYLE OF THE SOPHISTS. 97

and in his Republic, attributes to Catuicxzs, a disciple of Gorgias,
and to Turasymacuus of Chalcedon, who flourished as a teacher
of rhetoric during the Peloponnesian war, and which were
frequently uttered by Plato’s own uncle, the able and politic
Critias who has been mentioned more than once in oe course
of this history.’

δ 3. If, however, we turn from this influence of the Sophists
on the spirit of their age, and set ourselves to inquire what they
did for the improvement of written compositions, we are con-
strained to set a very high value on their services. The for-
mation of an artificial prose style is due entirely to the Sophists,
and although they did not at first proceed according to a right
method, they may be considered as having laid a foundation for
the polished diction of Plato and Demosthenes. The Sophists
of Greece proper, as well as those of Sicily, made language the
object of their study, but with this distinction, that the former
aimed at correctness, the latter at beauty of style? Protagoras
investigated the principles of accurate composition (ὑρθοέπεια),
though practically he was distinguished for a copious fluency,
which Plato’s Socrates vainly attempts to bridle with his dialec-
tic ; and Prodicus busied himself with inquiries into the signi-
fication and correct use of words, and the discrimination of
synonyms: his own discourses were full of such distinctions, as
_ appears from the humorous imitation of his style in Plato’s
Protagoras.

‘The principal object which Gorgias proposed to himself was
a beautiful, ornamented, pleasing, and captivating style; he was
by profession a rhetorician, and had been prepared for his trade
by a suitable education. The Sicilian Greeks, and especially
the Syracusans, whose lively disposition and natural quickness
raised them, more than any other Dorian people, toa level with
the Athenians,* had commenced, even earlier than the people of
Attica, the study of an artificial rhetoric useful for the discus-

1 As a tragedian, but only with a view to the promulgation of these doctrines,
he is mentioned in Chap. XX VI. 8 4; as an Elegiac poet in Chap. XXX. § 5;
and as an orator, Chap. XXXI. § 4.

’ 2This distinction is pointed out by Leonhard Spengel in his useful work,
Συναγωγὴ τεχνῶν, sive artiwm scriptores, 1828, p. 63.

3 Cicero, Brutus XI1., 46 : Siculi acuta gens et controversa natura. Verrin. IV.,

43, 95: nunquam tam male est Siculis, quin aliquid facile et commode dicant.
Vou. 11. H

98 THE RHETORIC OF ΤῊΝ SOPHISTS.

sions of the law-courts. The situation of Syracuse at the time
of the Persian war had contributed a good deal to awaken their
natural inclination and capacity for such a study ; especially by
the impulse which the abolition of arbitrary government had
given to democratic sentiments (Ol. 78, 3. B.c.. 466), and by the
complicated transactions which sprung up from the renewal of
private claims long suppressed by the tyrants.’ At this time
Corax, who had been highly esteemed by the tyrant Hiero,
came forward in a conspicuous manner, both as a public orator
and as a pleader in the law-courts;* his great practice led him
to consider more accurately the principles of his art; and at
last it occurred to him to write a book on the subject:* this
book, like the innumerable treatises which succeeded it, was
called τέχνη ῥητορικὴ, “the art of rhetoric,’ or simply τέχνη;
“the art.” Although this work might have been very circum-
scribed in its plan, and not very comprehensive in its treatment
of the subject, it is nevertheless worthy of notice as the first of
its kind, not only among the Greeks, but perhaps also in the
whole world. For this τέχνη of Corax was not merely the first
attempt at a theory of rhetoric, but also the first theoretical
book on any branch of art:* and it is highly remarkable that
while ancient poetry was transmitted through so many gene-
rations by nothing but practice and oral instruction, its younger
sister began at once with establishing itself in the form of a
theory, and as such communicating itself to all who were de-
sirous of learning its principles. All that we know of this τέχνη

1 Cic. Brut. XII., 46 (after Aristotle): cum sublatis in Sicilia tyrannis res pri-
vate longo intervallo judictis repeterentur, Aristotle is also the authority for the
statement in the scholia on Hermogenes, in Reiske’s Oratores Aitici. T. VIII. p.
196. Comp. Montfaucon, Biblioth. Coislin., p. 592.

2 Or as a composer of speeches for others, for it is doubtful whether there was
an establishment of patroni and causidici at Syracuse, as at Rome ; or whether every
one was compelled to plead his own cause, as at Athens, in which case he was
always able to get his speech made for him by some professed rhetorician.

3 This is also mentioned by Aristotle, who wrote a history of rhetoric down to
his own time, which is now lost: besides the passages referred to above, he men-
tions the τέχνη of Corax in his Rhetor. II., 24.

4 The old architectural treatises on particular buildings, such as that of Theo-
dorus of Samos on the temple of Juno in that island, and those of Chersiphron and

Metagenes on the temple of Diana at Ephesus, were probably only tables of calcu-
lations and measurements.

THE RHETORIC OF THE SOPHISTS. 99

is that it laid down a regular form and regular divisions for the
oration ; above all, it was to begin with a distant procemium,
calculated to put the hearers in a favourable train, and to con-
ciliate their good will at the very opening of the speech.’

§ 4. Tistas was first a pupil and afterwards a rival of
Corax ; he was also known not only as an orator, but also as
the author of a τέχνη: Gorgias, again, was the pupil of Tisias,
and followed closely in his steps: according to one account,?
Tisias was a colleague of Gorgias in the embassy from Leontini
mentioned above, though the pupil was at that time infinitely
more celebrated than his master. -With Gorgias this artificial
rhetoric obtained more fame and glory than fell to the share of
any other branch of literature. The Athenians, to whom this
Sicilian rhetoric was still a novelty, though they were fully
qualified and predisposed to appreciate and enjoy its beauties,*
were quite enchanted with it, and it soon became fashionable
to speak like Gorgias. The impression produced by the oratory
of Gorgias was greatly increased by his stately appearance, his
well-chosen and splendid costume, and the: self-possession and
confidence of his demeanour. Besides, his rhetoric rested on a
basis of philosophy,‘ though, as has just been mentioned, rather
of a negative kind; and there is no trace of this in the systems
of Corax and Tisias. This philosophy taught, that the sole aim
of the orator is to turn the minds of his hearers into such a
train as may best consist with his own interests; that, conse-
quently, rhetoric is the agent of persuasion,’ the art of all arts,
because the rhetorician is able to speak well and convincingly
on every subject, even though he has no accurate knowledge
respecting it.

In accordance with this view of rhetoric, Gorgias took little
pains with the subject-matter of his speeches; he only con-
cerned himself about this so far as to exercise himself in treat-

1 These introductious were called κολακευτικὰ καὶ θεραπευτικὰ προοίμια.

3 See Pausan. VI., 17, 18. Diodorus, the principal authority, makes no men-
tion of Tisias, XTI., 53. ν

8 ὄντες εὐφυεῖς καὶ φιλολόγοι, says Diodorus.

4 This philosophy is contained in a treatise by Gorgias, περὶ φύσεως ἢ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος,
of which the best account is given by Aristotle in his essay on Melissus, Xeno-
phanes, and Gorgias.

ὅ Πειθοῦς δημιουργός.

100 THE RHETORIC OF THE SOPHISTS:

ing of general topics, which were called /oci communes, and the
proper management and application of which have always helped
the rhetorician to conceal his ignorance. The panegyrics and
invectives which Gorgias wrote on every possible subject, and
which served him for practice, were also calculated to assist
him in combating or defending received opinions and convic-
tions, by palliating the bad, and misrepresenting the good. The
same purpose was served by his delusive and captious conclu-
sions, which he had borrowed from the Eleatic school, in order
to pass with the common herd as a profound thinker, and to
confuse their notions of truth and falsehood. All this belonged
to the instrument, by virtue of which Gorgias promised, in the
language of the day, to make the weaker argument, i.e. the
worse cause, victorious over the stronger argument, i.e. the
better cause.’

§ 5. But the chief study of Gorgias was directed to the form
of expression ; and it is true that he was able, by the use of
high-sounding words and artfully constructed sentences, to de-
ceive not only the ears but also the mind of the Greeks—alive
as they were to the perception of such beauties—to so great an
extent that they overlooked for a long time the emptiness and
coldness of his declamations. Prose was at this time com-
mencing its career, and had not yet manifested its resources,

. and shown the beauty of which it was capable: it was natural,
therefore, that it should take for its pattern the poetry which
had preceded it by so long an interval: the ears of the Greeks,
accustomed to poetry, required of prose, if it professed to be
more than a mere necessary communication of thoughts, if it
aimed at beauty, a great resemblance to poetry. Gorgias com-
plied with this requisition in two ways: in the first place, he
employed poetical words, especially rare words, and new com-
pounds, such as were favourites with the lyric and dithyrambic
poets.” As this poetical colouring did not demand any high
flight of ideas, or any great exertion of the imaginative powers,

1 ἥττων καὶ κρείττων λόγος. ‘
_ 3 See Aristotle, Rhetor. III., 1, 3, and 3, 1. Here the διπλᾶ ὀνόματα are parti-
eularly assigned to Gorgias and Lycophron. In the Poetic. 22, Aristotle says, that
the διπλᾶ ὀνόματα, i.e. extraordinary words and novel compounds, occurred most:
frequently in the Dithyramb.

FORMS OF EXPRESSION OF GORGIAS. 101

and as it remained only an outward ornament, the style of
Gorgias became turgid and bombastic, and compositions cha-
racterized by this fault were said, in the technical language of
Greek rhetoric, to gorgiaze.' In the second place, the prevail-
ing taste for prose at that time seemed to require some sub-
stitute for the rhythmical proportions of poetry. Gorgias effected
this by giving a sort of symmetry to the structure of the sen-
tences, so that the impression conveyed was, that the different
members of the period were parallel and corresponding to one
another, and this stamped the whole with an appearance of
artificial regularity. To this belonged the art of making the
sentences of equal length, of making them correspond to one
another in form, and of making them end in the same way :”
also the use of words of similar formation and of similar sound,
i.e. almost rhyming with one another :* also, the antithesis, in
which, besides the opposition of thought, there was a corre-
spondence of all the different parts and individual points ; an arti-
fice which easily led the orator to introduce forced and unnatural
combinations,’ and which, in the case of the Sicilian rhetoricians,
had already incurred the ridicule of Epicharmus.’ If we add
to this the witty turns, the playful style, the various methods
of winning the attention, which Gorgias skilfully interwove
with his expressions, we shall have no difficulty in understand-
ing how this artificial prose, which was neither poetry nor yet
the language of common life, was so successful on its first ap-
pearance at Athens. That such a style was highly suitable to

1 γοργιάζειν. 3 ἰσόκωλα, πάρισα, ὁμοιοτέλευτα.
8 Παρονομασίαι, παρηχήσεις.
* As in the forced but ingenious definition of tragic illusion, namely, that it is
an ἀπάτη, or deceit :—
ἣν ὅ τι ἀπατήσας δικαιότερος τοῦ μὴ ἀπατήσαντος
καὶ ὁ ἀπατηθεὶς σοφώτερος τοῦ μὴ ἀπατηθέντος,
ὁ.6. in which the deceiver does his duty better than the undeceiving, and where the
person deceived shows more feeling for art than the person who will not yield to
the deception, All these figures occur in abundance in the very important and no
doubt genuine fragments of Gorgias’ funeral oration, which are preserved in the
scholia on Hermogenes : see Foss, de Gorgia Leontino, p.69. Spengel, Συναγωγή,
p. 78. Clinton, κ΄. H., Vol. II., p. 464, ed. 3.
ὅ In the verse: τόκα μὲν ἐν τήνοις ἐγὼν ἣν, τόκα δὲ παρὰ Tivos ἐγών, which is an
opposition of words rather than of sense, such as naturally resulted from a forced
antithetical style; see especially Demetrius, de Elocutione, § 24.

102 THE RHETORIC OF THE SOPHISTS.

the taste of the age as it gradually unfolded itself, is also shown
by its rapid extension and further development, especially in
the school of Gorgias. We have already spoken of Agathon’s
parallelisms and antitheses;' but Potus of <Agrigentum, the
favourite scholar and devoted partizan of Gorgias, went far
beyond all others in his attention to those ornaments of
language, and carried this even into the slightest minutie of
language :? similarly, Atcrpamas, another scholar of Gorgias,
who is often mentioned by Aristotle, exceeded his master in his
showy, poetic diction, and in the affectation of his elegant
antithesis.’

1 Chap. XXVL,, § 3.

2 In the address: ὦ λῶστε Πῶλε, Plato ridicules his fondness for the juxtaposition
of words of a similar sound.

3 The declamations which remain under the name of Gorgias, Alcidamas, and
Antisthenes (another scholar of Gorgias), have been justly regarded as imitations
of their style by later rhetoricians.

103

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE BEGINNINGS OF REGULAR POLITICAL AND FORENSIC
ORATORY AMONG THE ATHENIANS.

§ 1. Antiphon’s career and employments. § 2. His school-exercises, the Tetra-
logies. ὃ 3. His speeches before the courts ; Character of his oratory. ὃ 4, 5
More particular examination of his style. § 6, Andocides ; his life and character.

δ 1. (PXHE cultivation of the art of oratory among the Athe-

nians is due to a combination of the natural eloquence,
displayed by the Athenian statesmen, and especially by Pericles,
with the rhetorical studies of the Sophists. The first person
in whom the effects of this combination were fully shown was
AntipHon, the son of Sophilus of Rhamnus. Antiphon was
both a practical statesman and man of business, and also a
rhetorician of the schools. With regard to the former part of
his character, we are told by Thucydides that, though the
tyranny of the Four-hundred was ostensibly established by
Pisander, it was Antiphon who drew up the plan for it, and
who had the greatest share in carrying it into effect ; ‘he was
a man, says the historian,’ ‘inferior to none of his contem-
poraries in yirtue, and distinguished above all others in forming
plans and recommending his views by oratory. He made no
public speeches, indeed, nor did he ever of his own accord
engage in the litigations of the court ; but being suspected by
the people from his reputation for powerful speaking,’ there was
yet no one man in Athens who was better able to assist, by his
counsels, those who had any contest to undergo either in the
law-courts or in the popular assemblies. And in his own case,
when, after the downfal of the Four-hundred, he was tried for
his life as having been a party to the establishment of the oli-
garchy, it is acknowledged that the speech which he made in
his own defence was the best that had ever been made up to

1 VIII, 68.
5 δεινότης, here used in its wider sense, as implying any power of persuasion.

104 POLITICAL AND FORENSIC ORATORY.

that time.’ But his admirable oratory was of no avail at this
crisis, when the effect of his speech was more than counter-
balanced by the feelings of the people: the devices of Thera-
menes completed his ruin; he was executed in Ol. 92, 2. B.c.
411, when nearly seventy years old;’ his property was con-
fiscated, and even his descendants were deprived of the rights
of citizenship.®

We clearly see, from the testimony of Thucydides, what use
Antiphon made of his oratory. He did not come forward, like
other speakers, to express his sentiments in the Ecclesia, nor was
he ever a public accuser in the law-courts: he never spoke in
public save on his own affairs and when attacked : in other cases
he laboured for others. With him the business of speech-writing
first rose into importance, a business which for a long time was
not considered so honourable as that of the public speaker ;
but although many Athenians spoke and thought contemptu-
ously of his profession, it was practised even by the great
public orators along with their other employments ; and accord-
ing to the Athenian institutions was almost indispensable.
For in private suits the parties themselves pleaded their cause
in open court ; and in public indictments, though any Athenian
might wenihet the prosecution, the accused person was not
allowed an advocate, though his defence might be supported by
some friends who spoke after him, and endeavoured to complete
the arguments in his favour. It is obvious from this, that
when the need of an advocate in the law-courts began to be
more and more felt, most Athenians would be obliged to apply
for professional assistance, and would, with this view, either get
assisted in the composition of their own speeches, or commit to
memory and deliver, word for word, a speech composed for
them by some practised orator. Thus the speech-writers, or

1 It is a great pity that this speech has not been preserved. Harpocration often
quotes it under the title ἐν τῷ περὶ τῆς μεταστάσεως. The allusions to the time of
the Four-hundred are obvious enough.

2 2.6. if the account is true which places his birth in Ol. 75, 1. B.c. 480. His
great age and winning eloquence seem to have gained him the name of Nestor, by
which he was known among the Athenian people.

3 The decree according to which he was executed, and the decision of the court,
are preserved in the Vite decem oratorwm (in Plutarch’s works), Cap. I.

ANTIPHON. 105

logographi, as they were called,’ (Antiphon, Lysias, Iszeus, and
Demosthenes,) rendered services partly analogous to those per-
formed by the Roman patroni and causidici, or to the legal
advocates and counsellors of modern states, although they did
not stand nearly so high in public estimation, unless at the same
time they took an active part in public affairs.2 The practice
of writing speeches for others probably led to a general habit
of committing speeches to writing, and thus placing them within
the reach of others besides those to whom they were delivered :
at all events, it is certain that Antiphon was the first to do
this.’

Antiphon also established a school of rhetoric, in which the
art of oratory was systematically taught, and, according to a
custom which had been prevalent since the time of Corax, wrote
a Techne, containing a formal exposition of his principles. As
a teacher of rhetoric Antiphon followed closely in the steps of the
Sophists, with whose works he was very well acquainted,
although he was not actually a scholar of any one among
them :* like Protagoras and Gorgias, he discussed general
themes, which were designed only for exercises, and had no
practical object in view. These may have been partly the most
general subjects about which an argument could be held,—the
loci communes, as they are called ;° partly, particular cases so
ingeniously contrived that the contrary assertions respecting
them might be maintained with equal facility, and thus exercise
would be afforded to the sophistic art of speaking plausibly on
both sides of the question.

§ 2. Of the fifteen remaining speeches of Antiphon, twelve
belong to the class of school exercises. They form three

1 They were called λογογράφοι by the common people at Athens.

? Thus Antiphon was attacked by Plato the comedian for writing speeches for
hire: Photius, Codex, 259.

3 Orationem primus omnium scripsit, says Quintilian.

4 This is shown by the γένος ᾿Αντιφῶντος : the chronology renders it almost im-
possible that Antiphon’s father could have been a Sophist (Vite X. Orat., ο. 1.
Phot., Codex 259).—[This is probably a confusion occasioned by the name of Anti-
phon’s father Sophilus.—Ep.]

ὅ That Antiphon had practised himself in such commonplaces is shown by their
occurrence in different orations, in which he inserts them wherever he can. Comp.
de cede Herod., ὃ 14, 87. Chor., § 2, 3.

106 POLITICAL AND FORENSIC ORATORY.

Tetralogies, so that every four of the orations are occupied with
the discussion of the same case, and contain a speech and reply
by both plaintiff and defendant.! The following is the subject
of the first Tetralogy :—A citizen, returning with his slave from
an evening banquet, is attacked by assassins, and killed on the
spot: the slave is mortally wounded, but survives till he has
told the relations of the murdered man that he recognized
among the assassins a particular person who was at enmity with
his master, and who was about to lose his cause in an important
law-suit between him and the deceased. Accordingly, this
person is indicted by the family of the murdered man, and the
speeches all turn upon an attempt to exaggerate or diminish the
probabilities for and against the guilt of the person arraigned.
For instance, while the complainant lays the greatest stress on
the animosity existing between the accused and the deceased,
the defendant maintains that he could certainly have had no
hand in the murder, when it was obvious that the first sus-
picion would fall on himself. While the former sets great
value on the evidence of the slave as the only one available for
his purpose, the latter maintains that slaves would not be tor-
tured as they were, according to the Greek custom, unless their
simple testimony had been considered insufficient. In answer
to this the complainant urges, in his second speech, that slaves
were tortured on account of theft, for the purpose of bringing to
light some transgression which they concealed to please their
master ; but that, in cases like the one in question, they were
emancipated in order that they might be qualified to give evi-
dence ;? and, in regard to the argument that the accused must
have foreseen that he would be suspected, the fear of this sus-
picion would not have been sufficient to counterbalance the
danger resulting from the loss of his cause. The accused,
however, gives a turn to the argument from probability, by
remarking, among other things, that a freeman would be re-
strained from giving a false testimony by a fear of endangering
his reputation and substance; but that there was nothing to

1 λόγοι πρότεροι καὶ ὕστεροι..
2 Personal freedom was indispensable for evidence (μαρτυρεῖν) properly so called :
slaves were compelled to give evidence by the torture.

TETRALOGIES. 107

hinder the slave at the point of death from gratifying the family
of his master, by impeaching his master’s old enemy. And
after having compared all the arguments from probability, and
drawn a balance in his own favour, he concludes aptly enough,
by saying that he can prove his innocence, not merely by pro-
babilities' but by facts, and accordingly offers all his slaves,
male and female, to be tortured according to the custom of
Athens, in order to prove that he never left his house on the
night of the murder.

We have selected these few points from many other argu-
ments equally acute on both sides of the question, in order to
give those readers who are not yet acquainted with Antiphon’s
speeches, some notion, however faintyof the shrewdness and
ingenuity with which the rhetoricians of that time could twist
and turn to their own purposes the facts and circumstances
which they were called upon to discuss. The sophistic art of
strengthening the weaker cause was in Antiphon’s school con-
nected with forensic oratory,? the professor of which must
necessarily be prepared to argue in favour of either of the
parties in a law-suit.

§ 3. Besides these rhetorical exercises, we have three of
Antiphon’s speeches which were actually delivered in court—
the accusation of a step-mother charged with poisoning, the de-
fence of the person charged with the murder of Herodes, and
another defence of a choregus, one of whose choreute had been
poisoned while under training. All these speeches refer to
charges of murder,* and for this reason have been classed with
the Tetralogies, the assumed subjects of which are of the same
kind : a distribution of the works of Greek orators according to the
nature of the different suits was very common among the learned
grammarians,’ and many ancient citations refer to this division ;
for instance, when speeches referring to the duties of guardians,
to money-transactions, or to debts, are quoted as belonging to
different classes. In this manner Antiphon’s speeches on

1 In § 10, he says with great acuteness: ‘While they maintain on grounds of
probability that Iam guilty, they nevertheless maintain that I am not probably but
actually the murderer.’

2 τὸ δικανικὸν γένος. 3 φονικαὶ δίκαι.

* This occurs frequently in Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

108 POLITICAL AND FORENSIC ORATORY.

charges of murder have alone been preserved, and the only
orations of Iseeus which have come down to us, are those on the
law of inheritance and wills. In these speeches of Antiphon we
see the same ingenuity and shrewdness, and the same legal
acumen, as in the Tetralogies, combined with far greater polish
and elaboration of style, since the Tetralogies were only designed
to display skill in the discovery and complication of arguments.

These more complete speeches may be reckoned among the
most important materials that we possess for a history of
oratory. In respect to their style, they stand im close con-
nexion with the history of Thucydides and the speeches with
which it is interspersed, and confirm the statement of many
grammarians,’ that Thucydides was instructed in the school of
Antiphon,—a statement which harmonizes very well with the
circumstances of their lives. The ancients often couple Thucy-
dides with Antiphon,’ and mention these two as the chief masters
of the old austere oratory,’ the nature of which we must here
endeavour rightly to comprehend. It does not consist (as might
be conjectured from the expressions used in speaking of it,* which
are justified only by a comparison with the smooth and polished
oratory of later days) in any intentional rudeness or harshness,
but in the orator’s confining himself to a clear and definite
expression of what he had clearly and definitely conceived.
Although it is not to be denied that the orators of that time
were deficient in the fluency which results from practice, they
had on that account all the more power and freshness of
thought; many reflections, which afterwards became trivial
from frequent repetition, and in this way came to be used in a
flippant and superficial manner, were then delivered with all the

1 The most important authority is Cecilius of Calacte, a distinguished rheto-
rician of Cicero’s time, many of whose striking judgments and important re-
marks are still extant. See the Vitw X. Orator., c. 1. Photius, Biblioth. Codex,
259.
~ 2 When rhetorical studies were still a novelty, Thucydides at the age of
twenty might easily have been the scholar of Antiphon, who was eight years his
senior.

3 Dionys. Hal., de verb. comp., p. 150, Reiske. Tryphon, in Walz, Rhet., ὃ.
VIIL., p. 750.

4 αὐστηρὸς χαρακτήρ, αὐστηρὰ ἁρμονία, austerum dicendi genus ; see Dionys. Hal.,
de compos. verborum, p. 147, seqq.

STYLE OF ANTIPHON. 109

energetic carnestness of real feeling; and, without taking into
consideration the value and importance of their works as pro-
ducts of human genius, we find in writers like Antiphon and
Thucydides, a continual liveliness, an inexhaustible vigour of
mind, which, not to go farther, places them above even Plato
and Demosthenes, notwithstanding their better training and
wider experience.

§ 4. We shall arrive at a clearer conception of the train of
thought in these writers by considering, first the words, and
then the syntactical combinations by which their style was dis-
tinguished. Great accuracy in the use of expressions’ is a
characteristic as well of Antiphon as of Thucydides. This is
manifested, among other things, by an attempt to make a
marked distinction between synonyms and words of similar
sound: this originated with Prodicus, and both in this Sophist
and in the authors of whom we are speaking occasionally gave
an air of extravagance and affectation to their style Not to
speak of individual words, the luxuriance of grammatical forms
in the Greek language and the readiness with which it ad-
mitted new compounds, enabled these authors to create whole
classes of expressions indicating the most delicate shades of
meaning, such as the neuter participles.’ In regard to the gram-
matical forms and the connecting particles, the old writers did
not strive after that regular continuity which gives an equable
flow to the discourse, and enables one to see the whole con-
nexion from any part of it: they considered it of more im-
portance to express the finer modifications of meaning by changes
in the form of words, even though this might produce abrupt-
ness and difficulty in the expressions.‘ With respect to the

1 ἀκριβολογία ἐπὶ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν, Marcellin., vita Thucyd., § 36.

2 As when Antiphon says (de ced. Herod., § 94, according to the probable read-
ing): ‘You are now scrutineers (γνωρισταὶ) of the evidence; then you will be
judges (δικασταί) of the suit: you are now only guessers (Sofacrai), you will then
be deciders (κριταί) of the truth.’ See the similar examples in §§ ΟἹ, 92.

3 As when Antiphon says (TZetral. I., y. ὃ 3): ‘The danger and the disgrace
which had greater influence than the quarrel, were sufficient to subdue the passion
that was boiling in his mind’ (σωφρονίσαι τὸ θυμούμενον τῆς γνώμης). Thucydides,
who is as partial as Antiphon to this mode of expression, also uses the phrase, 7d
θυμούμενον THs γνώμης, VIII. 68.

4 As an example, we may mention Antiphon’s common practice of passing from.

110 POLITICAL AND FORENSIC ORATORY.

connexion of the sentences with one another, the language of
Antiphon and Thucydides stands half-way between the con-
secutive but unconnected diction of Herodotus' and the periodic
style of the school of Isocrates. We shall consider in one of
the following chapters how the period, which conveys an idea
of a style finished and rounded off, was first cultivated in that
later school: here it will be sufficient to mention the total
want of such a finished periodic completeness in the writings of
Antiphon and Thucydides. There are, indeed, plenty of long
sentences in these authors, in which they show a power of
bringing thoughts and observations into the right connexion with
each other. But these long sentences appear as a heaping
together of thoughts without any necessary rule or limit, such
that if the author had known any further circumstances likely
to support his argument, he might have added or incorporated
those circumstances,’ and not as a whole of which all the
subordinate particulars were necessary integral parts. The only
structure of sentences which was cultivated to any great extent
at this period was that in which the different members are not
related to one another as principal or subordinate, but merely
as consecutive sentences, ὁ. 6. the copulative, adversative, and
disjunctive sentences ;* and these were consistently and artfully
carried out in all their parts. It is indeed very worthy of
remark, how skilfully an orator like Antiphon arranged his
thoughts so that they always produced those binary combina-
tions of corresponding or opposed members ; and how labori-
ously he strove to exhibit on every side this symmetrical relation,
and, like an architect, carried the symmetry through all the
details of his work. To take an example, the orator has
scarcely opened his mouth to speak on the murder of Herodes
when he falls into a system of parallelisms such as we haye

the copulative to the adversative. He often begins with καὶ, but substitutes a δὲ
for the corresponding καὶ which should follow. This represents the two members
as at first corresponding parts of a whole, and thus the opposition of the second to
the first is rendered more prominent and striking.

1 λέξις εἰρομένη.

5 This structure of sentences, which occurs principally in narrative, will be dis-
cussed more at length when we come to Thucydides.

3 The sentences with καὶ (re) —xal, with μὲν —6é, with 4 (wérepov)—#. In
general, this constitutes the ἀντικειμένη λέξις,

STYLE OF ANTIPHON. 111

just described: ‘ Would that my oratorical skill and knowledge
of affairs, O judges, were equal to my unhappy condition and
the misfortunes which I have suffered. As it is, however, I
have more of the latter than I ought to have; whereas the
former fails me more than is expedient for me. For where I
was in bodily peril on account of an unjust accusation, there
my knowledge of affairs was of no avail; and now that I have
to save my life by a true statement of the case, I am injured
by my inability to speak ;’ and so forth. It is clear that this
symmetrical structure of sentences’ must have had its origin in
a very peculiar bias of mind; namely, in the habitual proneness
to compare and discriminate, to place the different points of a
subject in such connexion that their likeness or dissimilitude
might appear in the most marked manner; in a word, this
mode of writing presumes that peculiar combination of ingenuity
and shrewdness for which the old Athenians were so pre-
eminently distinguished. At the same time it cannot be de-
nied that the habit of speaking in this way had something
misleading in it, and that this parallelism of the members of a
sentence was often carried much farther than the natural con-
ditions of thought would have prescribed ; especially as a mere
formal play with sounds united itself with this striving after an
opposition of ideas and a counterpoise of thoughts, the object
being to make this relation of the thoughts significant to the
ear also; but this was pursued so eagerly that the real object
was often overlooked.

The figures of speech, which were mentioned while we were
speaking of Gorgias,—the Isocola, Homeoteleuta, Parisa, Paro-
nomasie, and Parecheseis,—were admirably suited to this sym-
metrical architecture of the periods. The ornaments of diction
are all found in Antiphon, but not in such numbers as in
Gorgias, and they are treated with Attic taste and discern-
ment. But Antiphon also makes his antitheses of equal num-
bers of like-sounding words balanced against one another.

1 This is the ἐναρμόνιος σύνθεσις of Cxcilius of Calacte (Photius, Cod. 259), the
concinnitas of Cicero.

2 Ase.g., inde ced. Herod., § 73: ‘There must be more in your power to save
me justly, than in my enemies’ wish to destroy me unjustly’—7d ὑμέτερον δυνάμενον
ἐμὲ δικαίως σώζειν ἢ τὸ τῶν ἐχθρῶν βουλόμενον ἀδίκως ἐμὲ ἀπολλύναι,

112 POLITICAL AND FORENSIC ORATORY.

Antiphon, too, is fond of opposing words of similar sound in
order to call attention to their contrasted significations,’ and his
diction has something of that precision and constrained regu-
larity which reminds us of the stiff symmetry and parallelism of
attitudes in the older works of Greek sculpture.

§ 5. Though Antiphon by the use of these artifices, which
the old rhetoricians called ‘ figures of diction,’® was enabled to
trick out his style with a sort of antique ornaments, he did not,
according to the judicious remark of one of the best rhetori-
cians,* make any use of the ‘ figures of thought.’* These turns
of thought, which interrupt its equable expression, proceed for
the most part from passion and feeling, and give langnage its
pathos; they consist of the sudden burst of indignation, the
ironical and sarcastic question, the emphatic and vehement
repetition of the same idea under different forms,’ the gradation
of weight and energy,’ and the sudden breaking off in the midst
of a sentence, as if that which was still to be said transcended
all power of expression.’ But there is often as much of artful
design as of violent emotion in these figures of thought: thus
the orator will sometimes seek about for an expression as if he
could not find the right one, in order that he may give the
proper phrase with greater force after he has discovered it :°
sometimes he will correct what he has said, in order to convey
an idea of his great scrupulousness and accuracy ;° he will
suggest an answer in the mind of his adversary, as if it was
obvious and inevitable; or he will pervert the other party’s
words, so as to give them an entirely different signification ;
and so forth. All these forms of speech are foreign to the old
Attic oratory, for reasons which lie deeper than in the history

1 We have an example of this Paronomasia in de ced. Herod., ὃ 91: ‘If some
error must be committed, it is more consonant, to piety to acquit unjustly, than to
eondemn contrary to justice. — ἀδίκως ἀπολῦσαι ὁσιώτερον ἂν εἴη τοῦ μὴ δικαίως
ἀπολέσαι.

2 σχήματα τῆς λέξεως. :

3 Cecilius of Calacte (apud Phot., Cod. 250, p. 485 Bekker), who adds with great
judgment, ‘ that he will not assert that the figures of thought never occur in Anti-
phon, but that when they occur, they are not designed (κατ᾽ ἐπιτήδευσω), and that
they are of rare occurrence.’

4 σχήματα THs διανοίας. 5 Polyptoton.
6 Climax. 7 Aposiopesis, 8 Aporia.
9 Epidiorthosis, also called Metanewa, 10 Anaclasis.

ANDOCIDES. 113

of the rhetorical schools, viz. in the developement and pro-
gressive change of the Athenian character. These figures rest,
as has just been shown, partly on a violence of passion which
lays aside all claim to tranquillity and self-control; partly in a
sort of crafty dissimulation which employs every artifice in order
to make the appearances all on its own side.’ These two
qualities—vehemence of passion and tricky artifice—did not
become the prominent features of the Athenian character till a
later period, and though they grew stronger and stronger after
the shock given to the morality of Greece by the speculations of
the Sophists, and at the same time by the party-spirit which
the Peloponnesian war engendered, and which, according to
Thueydides,? nurtured the prevailing tendency to intrigue, yet
it was some time before the art of speaking arrived at that
stage of developement which necessitated or admitted these
peculiar figures of speech. In Antiphon, as well as in Thucy-
dides, the old equable and tranquil style is still prevalent: all
the efforts of the orator are directed to the invention and oppo-
sition of the ideas which his argument requires him to bring
forward: all that is unreal or delusive consists in the thoughts
themselves, not in any obscurity produced by the excitements
of passion. On the few occasions when Antiphon spoke, he
must have spoken, like Pericles, with unmoved countenance,
and in a tone of the most tranquil self-command, although his
contemporary Cleon, whose style of speaking was very far
removed from the artificial oratory of the day, used to run
backwards and forwards on the bema, throwing his mantle
aside and smiting his thigh with violent and excited gesti-
culations.*

§ 6. Anpocipes, who stands next to Antiphon in point of
time, and some of whose speeches have come down to us, is a
more interesting person in reference to the history of Athens at
this period than in regard to the cultivation of rhetoric. Sprung
from a noble family which furnished the heralds for the

1 Tavovpyia. On this account the σχήματα τῆς διανοίας are called by Cexcilius
τροπὴν ἐκ τοῦ πανούργου καὶ ἐνάλλαξιν.
3 Thucyd. III., 82.
3 This is mentioned by Plutarch (Nic. VIII., Tib. Gracch. II.) as the first offence
ever committed against the decency (κόσμος) of public speaking.
Vou. 11. I

114 POLITICAL AND FORENSIC ORATORY.

Eleusinian mysteries,’ we find him employed at an early age as
general and ambassador, until he was involved in the legal
proceedings about the mutilation of the Herme and the profana-
tion of the mysteries; he escaped by denouncing the guilty,
whether truly or falsely, but was obliged to leave Athens.
From this time he occupied himself with commercial transac-
tions, which he carried on chiefly in Cyprus, and with endeavours
to get recalled from banishment; until,-on the downfall of the
thirty tyrants, he returned to his native city under the protec-
tion of the general amnesty which the opposing parties had
sworn to observe. Though he was not without molestation on
account of the old charge, we find him still engaged in public
affairs, till at last, beimg sent as ambassador to Sparta in the
course of the Corinthian war, in order to negotiate a peace, he
was again banished by the Athenians because the result of his
negotiations was unsatisfactory.

We have three remaining speeches by Andocides: the first
relating to his return from exile, and delivered after the restora-
tion of the democracy by the overthrow of the Four Hundred
Counsellors ; the second relating to the mysteries, and delivered
in Ol. 95, 1. B.c. 400, in which Andocides endeavours to confute -
the continually reviving charge with respect to the profanation
of the mysteries, by going back to the origin of the whole
matter ; the third on the peace with Lacedzemon, delivered in
Ol. 97, 1. B.c. 392, ἴῃ which the orator urges the Athenian
assembly to conclude peace with the Spartans. The genuine-
ness of the last speech is doubted even by the old grammarians:
but the speech against Alcibiades, the object of which is to get
Alcibiades ostracized instead of the orator, is undoubtedly
spurious. If the speech were genuine it could not have been
written by Andocides consistently with the well-known circum-
stances relating to the ostracism of Alcibiades: in that case it
must be assigned to Phzeax, who shared with Alcibiades in the
danger of ostracism; and this is the opinion of a modern
critic °° but the contents and form of the speech prove beyond

1 τὸ τῶν κηρύκων τῆς μυστηριωτίδος γένος.
2 Taylor (Lectiones Lysiace, c. VI.), who has not been refuted by Ruhnken and
Valckenaer.—[See Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, ITI., p. 463.—Ep.]

ANDOCIDES. 115

all power of confutation that it is an imitation by some later
rhetorician.’

Although Andocides has been included in the list of the ten
celebrated orators, he is very inferior to the others in talent and
art. He exhibits neither any particular acuteness in treating
the great events which are referred to in his speeches, nor that
precision in the connexion of his thoughts which marks all the
other writers of this time: yet we must give him credit for his
freedom from the mannerism into which the more distinguished
men of the age so easily fell, and also for a sort of natural
liveliness, which may together be considered as reliques of the
austere style, as it appears in Antiphon and Thucydides.®

1 According to Meier, de Andocidis que vulgo fertur oratione in Alcibiadem, a
series of programmes of the University of Halle.

2 It is surprising that Critias was not rather enrolled among the Ten, but
perhaps his having been one of the Thirty stood in his way. Comp. Chap, XXXT,
§ 4.

3 The ἀντικειμένη λέξις prevails in Andocides also, but without any striving after
symmetry of expression.

116

CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

$ 1, The life of Thucydides: his training that of the age of Pericles. § 2. His
new method of treating history. § 3. The consequent distribution and arrange-
ment of his materials, as well in his whole work as, § 4, in the introduction.
§ 5. His mode of treating these materials ; his research and criticism. ὃ 6. Ac-
curacy and, § 7, intellectual character of his history. §§ 8, 9. The speeches
considered as the soul of his history. 88 10, 11. His mode of expression and
the structure of his sentences.

§ 1. HUCYDIDES, an Athenian of the demus of Alimus,
was born in Ol. 77, 2. B.c. 471, nine years after the
battle of Salamis.' His father Olorus, or Orolus, has a
Thracian name, although Thucydides himself was an Athenian
born: his mother Hegesipyle bears the same name as the
Thracian wife of the Great Miltiades, the conqueror at Ma-
rathon ; and through her Thucydides was connected with the
renowned family of the Philaide. This family from the time
of the older Miltiades, who left Athens during the tyranny of
the Pisistratidee and founded a principality of his own in the
Thracian Chersonese, had formed alliances with the people and
princes of that district ; the younger Miltiades, the Marathonian
victor, had married the daughter of a Thracian king named
Orolus ; the children of this marriage were Cimon and the
younger Hegesipyle, the latter of whom married the younger
Orolus, probably a grandson of the first, who had obtained the
rights of citizenship at Athens through his connexions ; the son
of this marriage was Thucydides.’

1 According to the well known statement of Pamphila (a learned woman of
Nero’s time), cited by Gellius, NV. A. XV., 23. This statement is not impugned
by what Thucydides says himself (V., 26), that he was of the right age to observe
the progress of the Peloponnesian war. He might well say this of the period
between the 40th and 67th years of his life; for though the ἡλικία in reference to
military service was different, it seems that the ancients placed the age suitable to
literary labours at a more advanced point than we do.

% This is the best way of reconciling the statements ofMarcellinus (vita Thucy-

THUCYDIDES. 117

_ In this way Thucydides belonged to a distinguished and
powerful family, possessed of great riches, especially in Thrace.
Thucydides himself owned some gold-mines in that country,
namely, at Scapte-Hyle (or Wald-rode, as it would have been
called in the Harz), in the same district from which Philip of
Macedon afterwards derived those resources by which he esta-
blished his power in Greece. This property had great influence
_ on the destiny of Thucydides, especially in regard to his banish-
ment from Athens, the chief particulars of which we learn from
himself." In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war (Ol. 89,
I. B.c. 423) the Spartan general, Brasidas, was desirous of
taking Amphipolis on the Strymon. Thucydides, the son of
Olorus, lay off Thasos with a small fleet of seven ships, probably
on his first command, which he had merited by his services in
some subordinate military capacity. Brasidas feared eyen this
small fleet, because he knew that the admiral possessed gold-
mines in the district and had great influence with the most
powerful inhabitants of the country, so that he would have no
difficulty in getting together a body of native troops to reinforce
the garrison of Amphipolis. Accordingly, Brasidas granted
the Amphipolitans a better capitulation than they expected, in
order to gain possession of the place speedily, and Thucydides
haying come too late to raise the siege, was obliged to content
himself with the defence of Eion, a fortified city near the coast.
The Athenians, who were in the habit of judging their generals
and statesmen according to the success of their plans, con-
demned him for neglect of duty ;? and he was compelled to go
into exile, in which state he continued for twenty years, living
principally at Scapte-Hyle. He was not permitted to return

didis) and Suidas with the well-known historical data. The following is the
whole genealogy :—
Cimon Stesagore f. Olorus, Thracum regulus.

Attica uxor — Miltiades Marathon. Hegesipyle I. Filius.

ee
Elpinice. Cimon Hegesipyle IT. ~ Olorus IT.
Thucydides.

1 Thucyd. IV., 104, seqq.
3 The charge against him was probably a γραφὴ mpodoctas.

118 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

after the peace between Sparta and Athens, but was only re-
called by a special decree when Thrasybulus had. restored the
democracy. After this he must have lived some years at
Athens, as his history clearly evinces; but not so long as
nature would have permitted: and there is much probability in
the statement that he lost his life by the hand of an assassin."

From this account of the career of Thucydides it appears
that he spent only the first part of his life, up to his forty-
eighth year, in intercourse with his countrymen of Athens.
After this period he was indeed in communication with all
parts of Greece, and he tells us that his exile had enabled him
to mix with Peloponnesians, and to gain accurate information
from them :? but he was out of the way of the intellectual
revolution which took place at Athens between the middle and
end of the Peloponnesian war: and when he returned home he
found himself in the midst of a new generation, with novel
ideas and an essentially altered taste, with which he could
hardly have amalgamated so thoroughly in his old age as to
change his own notions in accordance with them. Thucydides,
therefore, is altogether an old Athenian of the school of Pericles ;
his education, both real and formal, is derived from that grand
and mighty period of Athenian history ; his political principles
are those which Pericles inculcated; and his style is, on the
one hand, a representative of the native fulness and vigour of
Periclean oratory, and on the other hand an offshoot of the
antique, artificial rhetoric taught in the school of Antiphon.*

§ 2. As an historian, Thucydides is so far from belonging to
the same class as the Ionian logographi, of whom Herodotus
was the chief, that he may rather be considered as having com-
menced an entirely new class of historical writing. He was

1 We have passed over in silence unimportant and doubtful points, as well as
manifest errors, especially those introduced into the old biographies of the historian
by the confusion between him and the more celebrated statesman, Thucydides, the
son of Melesias,

2 Thucyd, V., 26.

8 The relation between Thucydides and Pericles is recognized by Wyttenbach,
who, in the preface to his Zcloge Historice, justly remarks: Thucydides ita se ad
Periclis imitationem composuisse videtur, ut, quum scriptum viri nullum exstet, ejus
eloquentie formam efigiemque per totum historia opus expressam posteritati servaret,
On the teaching of Antiphon, see Chap. X XXIII, ὃ 3.

METHOD OF THUCYDIDES. 119

acquainted with the works of several of these Ionians (whether
or not with that of Herodotus is doubtful’), but he mentions
them only to throw them aside as uncritical, fabulous, and
designed for amusement rather than instruction. Thucydides
directed his attention to the public speeches delivered in the
public assemblies and the law-courts of Greece: this was the
foundation of his history, in regard both to its form and its
materials. While the earlier historians aimed at giving a vivid
picture of all that fell under the cognizance of the senses by
describing the situation and products of different countries, the
peculiar customs of different nations, the works of art found in
different places, and the military expeditions which were under-
taken at different periods; and, while they endeavoured to
represent a superior power ruling with infinite authority over
the destinies of people and princes, the attention of Thucydides
was directed to human action as it is developed from the
character and situations of the individual, as it operates on the
condition of the world in general. In accordance with this
object, there is a unity of action in his work ; it is an historical
drama, a great law-suit, the parties to which are the belligerent
republics, and the object of which is the Athenian domination
over Greece. It is very remarkable that Thucydides, who
created this kind of history, should have conceived the idea
more clearly and vigorously than any of those who followed in
his steps. His work was destined to be only the history of the
Peloponnesian war, not the history of Greece during the Pelo-
ponnesian war: consequently, he had excluded everything per-
taining either to the foreign relations or the internal policy of
the different states which did not bear upon the great contest
for the Hegemony, or chief power in Greece: but, on the other
hand, he kas admitted everything, to whatever part of Hellas it
referred, which was connected with this strife of nations. From
the first, Thucydides had considered this war as a great event

1 The supposed references to Herodotus in I. 20, IT. 8, 97, are not quite clear ;
in the history of the murder of Hipparchus, which Thucydides refers to twice (I.
20., VI. 54—59), in order to correct the false opinions of his contemporaries,
Herodotus agrees almost entirely with him, and is free from those false opinions :
see Herodotus, V. 55, VI. 123. Thucydides would probably have written differ-
ently on several points had he been acquainted with the work of Herodotus, es-
pecially the passages I. 74, II. 8. Comp. above Chap. XIX. § 3.

.

120 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

in the history of the world, as one which could not be ended
without deciding the question, whether Athens was to become a
great empire, or whether she was to be reduced to the condition
of an ordinary Greek republic, surrounded by many others
equally free and equally powerful: he could not but see that
the peace of Nicias, which was concluded after the first ten
years of the war, had not really put an end to it; that it was
but interrupted by an equivocal and ill-observed armistice, and
that it broke out afresh during the Sicilian expedition: with
the zeal of an interested party, and with all the power of truth,
he shows that all this was one great contest, and that the peace
was not a real one.’

§ 3. Thucydides has distributed and arranged his materials
according to this conception of his subject. The war itself is
divided according to the mode in which it was carried on, and
which was regulated among the Greeks, more than with us, by
the seasons of the year: the campaigns were limited to the
summer; the winter was spent in preparing the armaments and
in negotiation. As the Greeks had no general era, and as the
calendar of each country was arranged according to some pecu-
liar cycle, Thucydides takes his chronological dates from the
sequence of the seasons, and from the state of the corn-lands,
which had a considerable influence on the military proceedings;
such expressions as, “ when the corn was in ear,” or “when
the corn was ripe,” ’ were sufficient to mark the coherence of
events with all needful accuracy. In his history of the different
campaigns, Thucydides endeavours to avoid interruptions to the
thread of his narrative: in describing any expedition, whether
by land or sea, he tries to keep the whole together, and prefers
to violate the order of time, either by going back or by antici-
cipating future events, in order to escape the confusion resulting
from continually breaking off and beginning again. That long
and protracted affairs, like the sieges of Potidea and Platza,
must recur in different parts of the history is unavoidable;
indeed it could not be otherwise, even if the distribution into
summers and winters could have been given ἀρ. For trans-

1 Thucyd. V. 26. 2 περὶ ἐκβολὴν σίτου, ἀκμάζοντος τοῦ σίτου, &e.
3 This is in answer to the censures of Dionysius, de Thucydide judicium, ο. IX.,
p. 826, Reiske.

Sd εν

em

MANNER OF THUCYDIDES. 121

actions like the siege of Potidea cannot be brought to an end
in a luminous and satisfactory manner without a complete view
of the position of the belligerent powers, which prevented the
besieged from receiving succour. The careful reader of Thucy-
dides will never be disturbed by any violent break in the history :
and the event which, considered as one, was the most momen-
tous in the whole war, and which the author has invested with
the most lively interest,—namely, the Athenian expedition to
Sicily, with its happy commencement and ruinous termination,
—is told with but few (and those short) digressions.' The
whole work, if it had been completed, would resolve itself into
three nearly equal divisions: I. The war up to the peace of
Nicias, which from the forays of the Spartans under Archidamus
is called the Archidamian war; II. The restless movements
among the Greek states after the peace of Nicias, and the com-
mencement of the Sicilian expedition; III. The renewed war
with the Peloponnesus, called by the ancients the Decelean war,
down to the fall of Athens. According to the division into
books, which, though not made by Thucydides, proceeded from
an arrangement by some intelligent grammarians, the first third
is made up of books II. III. IV.; the second of books V. VI.
VII.; of the third, Thucydides himself has completed only one
book, the VIIIth.

§ 4. In discussing the manner in which Thucydides distri-
buted and arranged his materials, we have still to speak of the
ist book ; indeed this demands a more particular consideration,
because its arrangement depends less upon the subject itself
than upon Thucydides’ peculiar reflections. The author begins
with asserting that the Peloponnesian war was the greatest
event that had happened within the memory of man, and esta-
blishes this by a retrospective survey of the more ancient history
of Greece, including the Persian war. He goes through the
oldest period, the traditions of the Trojan war, the centuries
immediately following that event, and, finally, the Persian in-
vasion, and shows that all previous undertakings wanted the

1 How happily even these digressions are interwoven with the narrative of the
Sicilian expedition ; ¢.g., the calamities produced at Athens by the occupation of
Decelea, and the horrible massacre at Mycalessus by the Thracian mercenaries
(Thucyd. VII. 27—30).

122 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

external resources which were brought into play during the
Peloponnesian war, because they were deficient in two things,—
money and a navy,'—which did not arise among the Greeks till
a late period, and developed themselves only by slow degrees.
In this way Thucydides applies historically the maxims which
Pericles had practically impressed upon the Athenians, that
money and ships, not territory and population, ought to be
made the basis of their power; and the Peloponnesian war
itself appeared to him a great proof of this position, because the
Peloponnesians, notwithstanding their superiority in extent of
country and in the number of their free citizens, so long fought
with Athens at a disadvantage till their alliance with Persia had
furnished them with abundant pecuniary resources, and thus
enabled them to collect and maintain a considerable fleet.
Having shown by this comparison the importance of his sub-
ject, and having given a short account of the manner in which
he intended to treat it, the historian proceeds to discuss the
causes which led to the war. He divides these into two classes ;
—the immediate causes, or those which lay on the surface, and
those which lay deeper and were not alleged by the parties.’
The first consisted of the negotiations between Athens and
Corinth on the subject of Coreyra and Potideea, and the conse-
quent complaint of the Corinthians in Sparta, by which the
Lacedzemonians were induced to declare that Athens had broken
the treaty. The second lay in the fear which the growing
power of Athens had inspired, and by which the Lacedzemonians
were compelled to make war as the only pledge of security to
the Peloponnese. This leads the historian to point out the
origin of this power, and to give a general view of the military
and political occurrences by which Athens, from being the
chosen leader of the insular and Asiatic Greeks against the
Persians, became the absolute sovereign of all the Archipelago

1 χρήματα καὶ ναυτικόν.

2 Thucydides’ reasoning is obviously a correct one in reference to the policy of
a state which, like Athens, was desirous of founding its power on the sovereignty
of the coasts of the Mediterranean : but states which, like Macedon and Rome,
strengthened themselves by a conquest of inland nations and great masses of the
continent before they proceeded to contest the sovereignty of the coasts of the
Mediterranean, had γῆ καὶ σώματα for the basis of their power, and the χρήματα
καὶ ναυτικὸν afterwards accrued to them naturally. 3 αἰτίαι φανεραί. ---ἀφανεῖς.

PURPOSE OF THUCYDIDES. 123

and its coasts. Connecting these remarks on the causes of the
war with the preceding discussion, we clearly see that Thucy-
dides designed to give aconcise sketch of the history of Greece,
at least of that part which seemed the most important to him,
namely the developement of the power depending on money and
shipping; in order that the causes of the great drama of the
Peloponnesian war, and the condition and circumstances of the
states which play the principal part in it, may be known to the
reader. But Thucydides directs all his efforts to a description
of the war itself, and in this aims at a true conception of its
causes, not a mere delineation of its effects; accordingly, he
arranges these antecedent events according to general ideas,
and to these he is willing to sacrifice the chronological steps
by which the more deeply rooted cause of the war (i.e. the
growth of the Athenian power) connected itself with the account
of the weakness of Greece in the olden time, given in the first
part of the book.

The third part of the first book contains the negotiations of
the Peloponnesian confederacy with its different members and
with Athens, in consequence of which it was decided to declare
war; but even in this part we may discern the purpose of
Thucydides,—though he has partially concealed his object,—
to give the reader a clear conception of the earlier occurrences
on which depended the existing condition of Greece, and espe-
cially the dominion of Athens. In these negotiations, among
other things, the Athenians call upon the Lacedzemonians to
liberate themselves from the pollution which they had incurred
by putting Pausanias to death in the temple of Pallas; upon
this the historian relates the treasonable undertaking of
Pausanias and his downfal: with which he connects, as a mere
episode, an account of the last days of Themistocles. The fact
that Themistocles was involved in the ruin of Pausanias is not
sufficient to justify the insertion of this episode ; but the object
of Thucydides is to present the reader with the last and least
known occurrences in the life of this great man, who was the
author of the naval power and peculiar policy of Athens; and
in this to take an opportunity of paying the full tribute of just
appreciation to the greatness of his intellectual character.’

1 See Thucyd., I. 138.

124 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

§ 5. Thus much may suffice for the general distribution and
plan of the work ; we now turn to the manner in which he has
treated his materials. The history of Thucydides is not a
compilation from books, but is drawn immediately from the life,
from the author’s own observation, and from oral communica-
tions ; it is the first written record of an eye-witness, and bears
the stamp of fresh and living truth, which can only appear in a
history of this kind. Thucydides, as he tells us himself, fore-
saw what kind of a war it would be, and commenced his de-
scriptions with the war itself :' in its progress, he set down the
different events as they occurred, either from his own expe-
rience or from careful information, which he derived, not with-
out much trouble and expense, from persons of both parties ;?
and he laboured at his history partly in Athens before his
banishment, and partly in Scapte-Hyle during his exile. At
the latter place the plane-tree under which Thucydides used to
write was shown long after his death. All that he wrote in
this way, during the course of the war, was only a preliminary
labour, of the nature of our Memoirs ;* he did not commence
the actual arrangement of his materials till after the end of the
war, when he was again residing in his native country. This
is shown partly by the frequent references to the duration, the
issue, and the general connexion of the war ;* but especially by
the fact that the history was left unfinished ; whence we may
conclude, that the memoirs which Thucydides had written dur-
ing the war, and which necessarily extended to the surrender of
Athens, were not so complete as to supply the defects of the
work. There is much plausibility, too, in the statement, that
of the work, as it has come down to us, the last book was left
incomplete at the death of the author, and was expanded by the
copyist and first added to the others by a daughter of Thu
cydides, or by Xenophon: only we must not seek to raise any
doubt as to the genuineness of the VIIIth book ; all that we are

1T. 1. ἀρξάμενος εὐθὺς καθισταμένου.

2 See Thucyd., V. 26; VII. 44. Comp. Marcellinus, § 21.

3 These are called by the ancients, ὑπομνήματα, or commentariit rerum gestarum.

4 See Thucyd., I. 13, 93; Il. 65; V. 26. The tone of many passages, too, is
such that we may clearly see that the historian is writing in the time of the new
Spartan hegemony; this applies particularly to 1, 77.

ACCURACY OF THUCYDIDES. 125

entitled to do is to explain, on this hypothesis, certain dif-
ferences in the composition, and to infer from this that the
work wants the last touches of the master’s hand.’

§ 6. We cannot form any opinion as to the manner in which
Thucydides collected, compared, examined, and put together his
materials, for the oral traditions of the time are lost: but, if
perfect clearness in the narrative ; if the consistency of every
detail as well with other parts of the history as with all we
know from other sources of the state of affairs at that time; if
the harmony of all that he tells with the laws of nature and
with the known characters of the persons of whom he writes ;
if all this furnishes a security for the truth and fidelity of an
historian, we have this guarantee in its most ample form in the
work of Thucydides. The ancients, who were very strict in
estimating the characters of their own historians, and who had
questioned the veracity of most of them, are unanimous in
recognizing the accuracy and trustworthiness of Thucydides,
and the plan of his work, considered in the spirit of a rheto-
rician of the time, fully justifies his principle of keeping to a
statement of the truth: even the singular reproach that he has
chosen too melancholy a subject, and that he has not considered
the glory of his countrymen in this selection, becomes, when
properly considered, an encomium on his strict historical fide-
lity. The deviations of later historians, especially Diodorus
and Plutarch, upon close scrutiny, confirm the accuracy of
Thucydides ;? and, in all the points of contact between them,
in characterizing the statesmen of the day and in describing
the position of Athens at different times, Thucydides and Aris-
tophanes have all the agreement which we could expect between
the bold caricatures of the comedian and the accurate pictures
of the historian. Indeed we will venture to say, that there is
no period of history which stands before us with the same dis-
tinctness with which the first twenty-one years of the Pelopon-
nesian war are presented to us in the work of Thucydides,

1 On the speeches wanting in this book, see below, § 11.

2 Diodorus, in the history of the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian
wars, though he adopts the annalistic mode of reckoning, is far from being as exact
as Thucydides, who only gives a few notes of time. All that we can use in Diodorus
is his leading dates, successions of kings, years of the deaths of individuals, &c.

126 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

where we are led through every circumstance in all its essential
details, in its grounds and occasion, in its progress and results,
with the utmost confidence in the guiding hand of the historian.
The only thing similar to it in Roman history is Sallust’s
account of the Jugurthan war and of the Catilinarian conspiracy.
The remains of Tacitus’ contemporary history (the Historie),
although equally complete in the details, are very inferior in
clear and definite narratives of fact. Tacitus hastens from one
exciting occurrence to another, without waiting to give an ade-
quate account of the more common events connected with
them.’ Thucydides himself designed his work for those who
wish to learn the truth of what has happened, and to know
what is most for their interest in reference to the similar cases,
which, according to the course of human affairs, must again
occur ; for such persons Thucydides bequeaths his book as a
lasting study.?_ In this there is an early indication of the ten-
dency to pragmatical history, in which the chief object was the
training of generals and statesmen,—in a word, the practical
application of the work; while the narration of events was
regarded as merely a meaus to an end: such a pragmatical his-
tory we shall find in the later ages of ancient literature.

§ 7. Thucydides would never have been able to attain this
truth and clearness in his history had he contented himself with
merely setting down the simple testimonies of eye-witnesses,
who described what they saw and felt, and had only inserted
here and there his own views and reasonings. Its credibility
rests mainly on the circumstance, that Thucydides, as well by
education as by his natural abilities, was capable of inferring,
from the conduct of the persons who figure in his history, the
motives which actuated them on every occasion. It is only in
particular cases, where he expressly mentions his doubts, that
Thucydides leaves us in the dark with regard to the motives of
the persons whose actions he describes; and he give us these

1 For instance, it is extremely difficult to get an entirely clear conception of the
war in Upper-Italy, between the partisans of Otho and Vitellius.

2 This is the meaning of the celebrated κτῆμα és del, I. 22: it does not mean an
everlasting memorial or monument. Thucydides opposes his work, which people
were to keep by them and read over and over again, to a composition which was
designed to gratify an audience on one occasion only.

SPEECHES IN THUCYDIDES. 127

motives, not as a matter of supposition and conjecture, but as
matter of fact. Asan honest and conscientious man, he could not
have done this unless he had been convinced that these views and
considerations, and these alone, had guided the persons in ques-
tion. Thucydides very seldom delivers his own opinion, as such ;
still more rarely does he pronounce sentence on the morality or
immorality of a given action. Every person who appears in
this history has a strongly marked character, and the more sig-
nificant his share in the main action, so much the more clearly
is he stamped with the mark of individuality ; and though we
cannot but admire the skill and power with which Thucy-
dides is able to sum up in a few words the characters of cer-
tain individuals, such as Themistocles, Pericles, Brasidas, Nicias,
Alcibiades, yet we must admire still more the nicety with which
he has kept up and carried out all the characters, in every
feature of their actions, and of the thoughts and opinions which
guided them.’

§ 8. The most decided and the boldest proof which Thucy-
dides has given of his intention to set forth the events of the
war in all their secret workings, is manifested in that part of
his history which is most peculiarly his own—the speeches. It
is true that these speeches, given in the words of the speakers,
are much more natural to an ancient historian than they
would be to one at the present day. Speeches delivered in the
public assembly, in federal meetings, or before the army, were
often, by virtue of the consequences springing from them, im-
portant events, and at the same time so public, that nothing
but the infirmities of human memory could prevent them from
being preserved and communicated to others. Hence it came
to pass, that the Greeks, who in the greater liveliness of their
disposition were accustomed to look to the form as well as to
the substance of every public communication, in relating the
circumstance were not content with giving an abstract of the
subject of the speech, or the opinions of the speaker in their
own words, but introduced the orator himself as speaking.
As in such a case, the narrator supplied a good deal from his

1 Marcellinus calls Thucydides δεινὸς ἠθογραφῆσαι, as Sophocles, among the poets,
was also renowned for the ἠθοποιεῖν.

128 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

own head, when his memory could not make good the deficiency ;
so Thucydides does not give us an exact report of the speeches
which he introduces, because he could not have recollected
perfectly even those which he heard himself. He explains
his own intention in this matter, by telling us that he en-
deavoured to keep as closely as possible to the true report of
what was actually said; but, when this was unattainable, he
had made the parties speak what was most to the purpose in
reference to the matter in hand.’ We must, however, go a step
further than Thucydides, and concede to him greater freedom
from literal tradition than he was perhaps conscious of him-
self. The speeches in Thucydides contain a sum of the mo-
tives and causes which led to the principal transactions ; namely,
the opinions of individuals and of the different parties in a state,
from which these transactions sprung. Speeches are introduced
whenever he thinks it necessary to introduce such a develope-
ment of causes: when there is no such necessity, the speeches
are omitted; though perhaps just as many were actually de-
livered in the one case as in the other. Accordingly, the
speeches which he has given contain, in a summary form, much
that was really spoken on various occasions ; as, for instance,
in the second debate in the Athenian assembly about the mode
of treating the conquered Mitylenzans, in which the decree
that was really acted on was passed by the people; in this the
opinions of the opposing parties—the violently tyrannical, and
the milder and more humane party—are pourtrayed in the
speeches of Cleon and Diodotus, though Cleon had, the day
before, carried the first inhuman decree against the Mitylenzeans,?
and in so doing had doubtless said much in support of his motion
which Thucydides has probably introduced into his speech in
the second day’s debate. In one passage, Thucydides gives us

1 χὰ δέοντα μάλιστα, Thucyd. I. 22. 2 Thucyd. III. 36.

3 The speeches often stand in a relation to one another which could not have
been justified by existing circumstances. Thus, the speech of the Corinthians
in I. 120, seqq., is a direct answer to the speech of Archidamus in the Spartan
assembly, and to that of Pericles at Athens, although the Corinthians did not hear
either of them. The reason of this relation is, that the speech of the Corinthians
expresses the hopes of victory entertained by one portion of the Peloponnesians,
while Archidamus and Pericles view the unfavourable position of the Peloponnese
with equal clearness, but from different points of view. Compare also the remarks
on the speeches of Pericles in Chap. XXXI.

ee il

SPEECHES IN THUCYDIDES. 129

a dialogue instead of a speech, because the circumstances
scarcely admitted of any public harangue: this occurs in the
negotiations between the Athenians and the council of Melos,
before the Athenian attack upon this Dorian island, after the
peace of Nicias: but Thucydides takes this opportunity of
stating the point at which the Athenians had arrived in the
grasping, selfish, and tyrannical policy, which guided their
dealings with the minor states.’

ὃ 9. It is unnecessary to mention that we must not look for
any mimic representation in the speeches of Thucydides, any
attempt to depict the mode of speaking peculiar to different
nations and individuals; if he had done this, his whole work
would have lost its unity of tone and its harmony of colouring.
Thucydides goes into the characteristics of the persons whom
he introduces as speaking, only so far as the general law of his
history permits. In setting forth the views of his speakers, he
has regard to their character, not only in the contents and sub-
ject of the speeches which he assigns to them, but also in the
mode in which he developes and connects their thoughts. To
take the first book alone, we have admirable pictures of the
Corcyrzans, who only maintain the mutual advantages resulting
from their alliance with Athens; of the Corinthians, who rely
in some degree on moral grounds; of the discretion, mature
wisdom, and noble simplicity of the excellent Archidamus ; and
of the haughty self-confidence of the Ephor Sthenelaidas, a
Spartan of the lower order: the tone of the composition agrees
entirely with the views and fundamental ideas of their speeches ;
as, for instance, the searching copiousness of Archidamus and
the cutting brevity of Sthenelaidas. The chief concern of
Thucydides in the composition of these speeches was to exhibit
the principles which guided the conduct of the persons of whom
he is writing, and to allow their opinions to exhibit, confirm,
and justify or exculpate themselves. This is done with such
intrinsic truth and consistency, the historian identifies himself
so entirely with the characters which he describes, and gives

1 Dionysius says (de Thucyd. judic., p. 910), that the principles unfolded in this
dialogue are suited to barbarians and not to Athenians, and blames Thucydides
most violently for introducing them: but these were really the principles on which
the Athenians acted.

Vou. II. K

130 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

such support and plausibility to their views and sentiments,
that we may be sure that the persons themselves could not have
pleaded their own cause better under the immediate influence
of their interests and passions. It must indeed be allowed, that
this wonderful quality of the historian is partly due to the so-
phistical exercises, which taught the art of speaking for both
parties, for the bad as well as the good; but the application
which Thucydides made of this art was the best and most bene-
ficial that could be conceived ; and it is obvious, that there can
be no true history unless we presume such a faculty of assuming
the characters of the persons described, and giving some kind
of justification to the most opposite opinions, for without this
the force of opinions can never be adequately represented,
Thucydides developes the principles which guided the Athenians
in their dealings with their allies with such a consistent train
of reasoning, that we are almost compelled to assent to the
truth of the argument. In a series of speeches, occurring in
very different parts of the history, but so connected with one
another that we cannot fail to recognise in them a continuation
of the same reasoning and a progressive confirmation of those
principles, the Athenians show that they did not gain their
power by violence, but were compelled by the force of cireum-
stances to give it the form of a protectorate ; that in the existing
state of things they could not relinquish this protectorate with-
out hazarding their own existence ; that as this protectorate had
become a tyranny, it must be maintained by vigour and severity ;
that humanity and equity could only be appealed to in dealings
with an equal, who had an opportunity of requiting benefits
conferred upon him;’ till at last, in the dialogue with the
Melians, the Athenians assert the right of the stronger as a
law of nature, and rest their demand, that the Melians should
become subject to them, on this principle alone. ‘ We desire
and do,’ say they, ‘only what is consistent with all that men
conceive of the gods and desire for themselves. For as we
believe it of the gods, so we clearly perceive in the case of men,

1 Thucyd. 171. 37. 40. This is said by Cleon, who, in the case in question,
was defeated by the more humane party of Diodotus ; but this exception, made in
the case of the Mitylenzans, remained an exception in favour of humanity; as a
general rule, the spirit of Cleon predominated in the foreign policy of Athens.

SPEECHES IN THUCYDIDES. 131

that all who have the power are constrained by a necessity of
nature to govern and command. We did not invent this law,
nor were we the first to avail ourselves of it; but since we have
received it as a law already established and in full force, and
since we shall leave it as a perpetual imheritance to those who
come after us, we intend, on the present occasion, to act in ac-
cordance with it, because we know that you and all others would
act in the same manner if you possessed the same power.’
These principles, according to which no doubt Greeks and other
men had acted before them, though perhaps under some cloak
or disguise of justice, are so coolly propounded by the historian
in this dialogue, he has delivered them so calmly and dis-
passionately, so absolutely without any expression of his own
opinion to the contrary, that we are almost led to believe that
Thucydides recognised the right of the strongest as the only rule
of politics. But there is clearly a wide difference between the
modes of thinking and acting which Thucydides describes with
such indifference as prevailing in Athens, and his own convictions
as to what was for the advantage of mankind in general and of
his own countrymen in particular. How little Thucydides, as
an honest man, approved of the maxims of Athenian policy
established in his own time, is clear from his striking and in-
structive picture of the changes which took place in the political
conduct of the different states after the first years of the war, in
consequence chiefly of the domestic strife of factions—changes
which Thucydides never intended to represent as beneficial, for
he says of them, that ‘ simplicity of character, which is the
principal ingredient in a noble nature, was in those days ridi-
culed and banished from the world”? The panegyric on the
Athenian democracy, and on their mode of living, which occurs
chiefly in the funeral oration of Pericles, is modified con-
siderably by the assertion of Thucydides, that the government
of the Five-thousand was the best administered constitution
which the Athenians had enjoyed in his time ;° and also by the
incidental remark that the Lacedzmonians and Chians alone,
so far as he knew, were the only people who had been able to

1 Thucyd. V. 105, according to Dr. Arnold’s correct interpretation.
2 IIT. 83: τὸ εὔηθες, οὗ τὸ γενναῖον πλεῖστον μετέχει, καταγελασθὲν ἠφανίσθη.
3 Thucyd. VIII. 97.

K 2

132 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

unite moderation and discretion with their good fortune.’ And

thus, in general, we must draw a distinction between the sound

and serious morality of Thucydides, and the impartial love of-
truth, which led him to paint the world as it was; and we must

not deny him a deep religious. feeling, because his plan was to

describe human affairs according to their relation of cause and

effect ; and because, while he took account of the belief of others,

as a motive of their actions, he does not obtrude his own belief
on the subject. Religion, mythology, and poetry, are sub-

jects which Thucydides, with a somewhat partial view of the
matter,’ sets aside as foreign to the business of ἃ his-
torian; and we may justly regard him as the Anaxagoras of
history, for he has detached the workings of Providence from
the chain of causes which influence the life of man as distinctly
and decidedly as the Ionian philosopher separated the νοῦς from
the powers which operate on the material world.’

§ 10. The style and peculiar diction of Thucydides are so
closely connected with the character of his history, and are so
remarkable in themselves, that we cannot but make an attempt,
notwithstanding the necessary brevity of the sketch, to set them
before the reader in their main features.

We think we have already approximated to a right concep-
tion of this peculiar style, in the remark, that in Thucydides
the concise and pregnant oratory of Pericles was combined with
the antique and vigorous but artificial style of Antiphon’s
rhetoric.

In the use of words, Thucydides is distinct and precise,
and every word which he uses is significant and expressive.
Even in him this degenerates, in some passages, into an attempt
to make distinctions, after the manner of Prodicus, in the use
of nearly synonymous words.‘

This definiteness of expression is aided by great copiousness

1 Thucyd. VIII. 24.

2 It would be easy to show that Thucydides sets too low a value on the old civi-
lization of Greece ; and, in general, the first part of the first book, the introduction
properly so called, as it is written to establish a general proposition for which Thu-
cydides pleads as an advocate, does not exhibit those unprejudiced views for which |
the main part of the work is so peculiarly distinguished.

See Vol. I., p. 247.
4 I. 69; IT. 62; IIT. τό, 39.

STYLE OF THUCYDIDES. 133

of diction, and in this, Thucydides, like Antiphon, uses a great
number of antique, poetical words, not for the mere purpose of
ornament, as is the case with Gorgias, but because the language
of the day sanctioned the use of these pithy and expressive
phrases.'. In his dialect, Thucydides kept closer to the old
Attic forms than his contemporaries among the comic
poets.”

Similarly, the constructions in Thucydides are marked by a
freedom, which, on the whole, is more suitable to antique
poetry than to prose; and this has enabled him to form con-
nexions of ideas, without an admixture of superfluous words,
which disturb the connexion, and, consequently, with greater
distinctness than would be possible with more limited and regu-
lar constructions. An instance of this is the liberty of con-
struing verbal-nouns in the same way as the verbs from which
they are derived. These, and other things of the same kind,
produce that rapidity of description, as the ancients call it,*
which hits the mark at once.

In the order of the words, too, Thucydides takes a liberty
which is generally conceded to poets alone; inasmuch as he
sometimes arranges the ideas rather according to their real
connexion or contrast than according to the grammatical con-
struction.’

In the connexion of his sentences there is sometimes an in-
equality and harshness,’ very different from the smooth and
polished style of later times. Moreover he does not avoid
using different grammatical forms (cases and moods) in the

1 These expressions, which had become obsolete in the mean time, were called
in later times γλῶσσαι ; hence, Dionysius complains of the γλωσσηματικὸν in the
style of Thucydides.

2 See chap. XX VII. at the end.

3 This is the origin of such expressions as the following : ἡ οὐ περιτείχισις, ‘the
circumstance that a hostile city was not surrounded by walls of circumvallation ;’
τὸ αὐτὸ ὑπὸ ἁπάντων ἰδίᾳ δόξασμα, ‘the case in which every individual, each for
himself, entertains the same opinion ;’ ἡ ἀκινδύνως δουλεία (not the same as ἀκίνδυνος),
*a, state of slavery in which one can live comfortably and free from all apprehen-
sions.’

4 τάχος τῆς σημασίας.

5 As in IIL. 39: μετὰ τῶν πολεμιωτάτων ἡμᾶς στάντες διαφθεῖραι, where
the first words are placed together for the sake of contrast.

8 ἀνωμαλία, τραχυτής.

134 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

corresponding members of the sentence,’ or allowing rapid
changes in the grammatical structure, which are often not ex-
pressly indicated but tacitly introduced, an expression required
by the sentence being supplied from another similar one.’

§ 1s. The structure of periods in Thucydides, like that of
Antiphon, stands half-way between the loose connexion of sen-
tences in the Ionian writers and the periodic style which subse-
quently developed itself at Athens. The greater power and
energy in the combination of thoughts is manifested by the
greater length of the sentences. In Thucydides there are two
species of periods, which are both of them equally characteristic
of his style. In one of them, which may be termed the descend-
ing period, the action, or result, is placed first, and is imme-
diately followed by the causes or motives expressed by causal-
sentences, or participles, which are again confirmed by similar
forms of speech.* The other form, the ascending period, begins
with the primary circumstances, developing from them all sorts
of consequences, or reflexions referring to them, and concludes,
often after a long chain of consequences, with the result, the
determination, or the action itself Both descriptions of pe-
riods produce a feeling of difficulty, and require to be read
twice in order to be understood clearly and in all respects; it
is possible to make them more immediately intelligible, more
convenient and pleasant to read, by breaking them up into the
smaller clauses suggested by the pauses in the sentence; but
then we shall be forced to confess that when the difficulty is

1 e.g., when he connects by καὶ two different constructions of cases, as the
grounds of an action, or when, after the same final or conditional particle, he places
first the conjunctive, and then the optative, in which the distinction’ is obvious.—
[See Arnold’s Thucydides, III. 22.—Ep, ]

3 The σχῆμα πρὸς τὸ σημαινόμενον, also the ἀπὸ κοινοῦ, is very common in Thu-
cydides,

3 Examples, I. 1: Θουκυδίδης ξυνέγραψε x.7.r. 1. 25: Κορίνθιοι δὲ κατὰ το δίκαιον
---ἤρχοντο πολεμεῖν" and everywhere.

4 Examples, I. 2: τῆς γὰρ ἐμπορίας x.7.r. I. 58: Ποτιδαιᾶται δὲ πέμψαντες κ.τ.Ἁ.
IV. 73: οἱ γὰρ Μεγαρῆς---ἔρχονται. It is interesting to observe how Dionysius
(de Thucyd. judic., p. 872) subjects these ascending periods to his criticism, and
resolves them into more intelligible and pleasing, but less vigorous forms, by
taking out of the middle a number of the subordinate clauses and adding them, by
way of appendix, at the end. Antiphon resembles Thucydides in this particular
also; ¢.g. in the sentence (Tetral. 1, a. ὃ 6): ἐκ παλαιοῦ γὰρ κ.τ.λ,

STYLE OF THUCYDIDES. 135

once overcome, the form chosen by Thucydides conveys the
strongest impression of a unity of thought and a combined
working of every part to produce one result.

This mode of constructing the sentence is peculiar to the
historical style of Thucydides: but he resembles the other
writers of the age in the symmetrical structure which prevails
in his speeches, in separating and contrasting the different
ideas, in comparing and discriminating, in looking backwards
and forwards at the same time, and so producing a sort of equi-
librium both in the diction and in the thoughts. As we have
already said, in speaking of Antiphon, this antithetical style is
not mere mannerism ; it is a natural product of the acuteness
of the people of Attica; but at the same time it is not to be
denied, that under the influence of the sophistical rhetoric it
degenerated into a sort of mannerism ; and Thucydides himself
is full of artifices of such a nature that we are sometimes at a
loss whether we are to admire his refined discrimination, or
wonder at his antique and affected ornaments,—especially when
the outward graces of Isocola, Homeoteleuta, Parecheses, &c.,
are superadded to the real contrasts of thoughts and ideas.’

On the other hand, Thucydides, even more than Antiphon,
is free from all those irregularities of diction which proceed
from passion or dissimulation ; he is conspicuous for a sort of
equable tranquillity, which cannot be better described than by
comparing it to that sublime serenity of soul which marks the
features of all the gods and heroes seulptured by Phidias and
his school. It is not an imperfection of language, it is rather
a mark of dignity, which predominates in every expression, and
which, even in the most perilous straits which necessarily called
into play every passion and emotion—fear and anguish, indig-
nation and hatred—even in these cases, bids the speaker main-
tain a tone of moderation and reflexion, and, above all, con-
strains him to content himself with a plain and impressive

1 As when Thucydides says (IV. 61): of 7 ἐπίκλητοι εὐπρεπῶς ἅδικοι
ἐλθόντες, εὐλόγως ἄπρακτοι ἀπίασιν ι. ε.,) ‘and thus those who with specious
pretexts came here on an unjust invitation, will be sent away on good grounds
without having effected their object.’ We have other examples in I. 77. 144;
III. 38. 57. 82; IV. 108. The old rhetoricians often speak of these σχήματα τῆς
λέξεως in Thucydides; Dionysius thinks them μειρακίωδη, puerilia. Compare
Aulus Gellius, NV, .A., XVIII. 8.

136 THE POLITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THUCYDIDES.

statement of the affair which he has in hand. What passionate
declamation a later rhetorician would have put into the mouths
of the Theban and Platzean orators, when the latter are plead-
ing for life and death against the former before the Spartans,
and yet Thucydides introduces only one burst of emotion:
‘ Have you not done a dreadful deed ?”?

It will readily be imagined, on the slightest comparison be-
tween these speeches and those of Lysias, how strange this
style and this eloguence—with its fulness of thoughts, its terse
and nervous diction, and its connexions of sentences not to be
understood without the closest attention—must have appealed
to the Athenians, even at the time when the work of Thucy-
dides first began to attract notice. In reference to the speeches,
Cratippus—a continuer of the history—was perhaps right when
he assigned, as a reason for the omission of speeches in the
VIIIth book, that Thucydides found them no longer suited to
the prevailing taste.” Even at that time these speeches must
have produced much the same effect upon the Attic taste as
that which Cicero, at a later period, endeavoured to convey to
the Romans, by comparing the style of Thucydides with old,
sour, and heavy Falernian.* Thucydides was scarcely easier to
the later Greeks and Romans than he is to the Greek scholars
of the present time; nay, when Cicero declares that he finds
the speeches in his history almost unintelligible, modern phi-
lologers may well congratulate themselves that they have sur-
mounted all these difficulties, and left scarcely anything in them
unexplained or misunderstood.

1 Πῶς οὐ δεινὰ εἴργασθε; III. 66. There is a good deal more liveliness and cheer-
fulness (probably intended to characterize the speaker) in the oration of Athena-
goras, the leader of the democratic party at Syracuse. (Thucyd. VI. 38, 39.)

2 Cratippus, apud Dionys. de Thucyd. judic., c. XVI., p. 847: τοῖς ἀκούουσιν
ὀχληρὰ εἶναι.

3 Cicero, Brutus 83. § 288.

137

CHAPTER ΧΧΧΥ.

THE NEW CULTIVATION OF ORATORY BY LYSIAS.

§ 1. Events which followed the Peloponnesian war. The adventures of Lysias.
Leading epochs of-his life. § 2. The earlier sophistical rhetoric of Lysias. ὃ 3.
The style of this rhetoric preserved in his later panegyrical speeches. § 4.
Change in the oratory of Lysias produced by his own impulses and by his em-
ployment as a writer of speeches for private individuals. § 5. Analysis of his
speech against Agoratus. § 6. General view of his extant orations.

Sok, HE Peloponnesian war, terminating, as it did, after

enormous and unexampled military efforts, in the
downfall of the power of Athens, was succeeded by a period of
exhaustion and repose. Freedom and democracy were indeed
restored by Thrasybulus and his party, but Athens had ceased
to be the capital of a great empire, the sovereign of the sea
and of the coasts; and it was only by the prudence of Conon
that she recovered even a part of her former supremacy. The
fine arts which, in the time of Pericles, had been carried to
such perfection by Phidias and his school, were checked in their
further progress; and did not resume their former vigour till
a generation later (Ol. 102. B.c. 372), when they sprung up
into new life in the later Attic school of Praxiteles. Poetry,
in the later tragedy and in the dithyramb, degenerated more
and more into rhetorical casuistry or empty bombast. That
higher energy, which results from a consciousness of real great-
ness, seemed to have vanished from the arts, as it did from
the active life of man.

And yet it was at this very time that prose literature, freed
from the fetters which had bound it hitherto, began a new
career, which led to its fairest development. liysias and
Isocrates (the two young men whom Socrates opposes one to
another in Plato’s Phedrus, bitterly reproaching the former, and
forming the most brilliant expectations with regard to the latter)
gave an entirely new form to oratory by the happy alterations

138 THE NEW CULTIVATION OF ORATORY BY LYSIAS.

which they, in different ways, introduced into the old prose
style.

Lystas was descended from a family of distinction at Syracuse.
His father, Cephalus, was persuaded by Pericles to settle at
Athens, where he lived 30 years:' he is introduced in Plato’s
Republic, about the year Ol. 92, 2. B.c. 411,7 as a very old man,
respected and loved by all about him. When the great colony
of Thurii was founded by an union of nearly all Greece (Ol. 84,
I. B.C. 444), Lysias went thither, along with his eldest brother
Polemarchus, in order to take possession of the lot assigned to
his family ; at that time he was only 15 years old. At Thurii
he devoted himself to rhetoric, as taught in the school of the
Sicilian Sophists: his instructors were the well-known Tisias,
and another Syracusan, named Nicias. He did not return to
Athens till Ol. 92, 1. B.c. 412, and lived there some few years
in the house of his father Cephalus, till he set up for himself as
a professed Sophist.? Although he did not enjoy the rights of
citizenship at Athens, but was merely a resident alien,‘ he and
his whole family were warmly engaged in favour of the demo-
cracy. On this account, the Thirty compelled his brother Pole-
marchus to drink the cup of hemlock, and Lysias only escaped
the rage of the tyrants by flying to Megara. He was thus all
the more ready to aid Thrasybulus and the other champions of
freedom at Phyle with the remains of his property, and for-
warded with all his might the restoration of democracy at
Athens.°

He was now once more settled at Athens as proprietor of
a shield-manufactory, also teaching rhetoric after the manner
of the Sophists, when a new career was opened to him by an

1 See Lysias, in Hratosth., ὃ 4.

2 According to the date of the Republic, as fixed by Béckh in two Programmes
of the University of Berlin for the years 1838 and 1839.

3. Avolas ὁ σοφιστὴς is mentioned in the speech against Nera (p. 1352 Reiske),
and there is no doubt that the orator is meant.

4 Méroixos, Thrasybulus wished to have made him a citizen, but circumstances
did not favour his design, and the orator remained an ἰσοτελής, one of a privileged
class among the μέτοικοι. As ἰσοτελεῖς the family had, before the time of the Thirty,
served as choregi, like the citizens.

5 With an obvious manifestation of personal interest, Lysias (in his funeral ora-
tion, ὃ 66) commemorates the strangers, ὁ. 6. the resident aliens, who fell fighting
in the Peirzeus by the side of the liberators of Athens,

ADVENTURES OF LYSIAS. 139

event which touched him very nearly. LEratosthenes, one of
the Thirty, wished to avail himself of the advantage granted to
the Thirty Tyrants under the general amnesty, namely, that it
should extend to them also, if they would submit to a public
inquiry, and so clear themselves of all guilt. Eratosthenes
relied on having belonged to the more moderate party of The-
ramenes, who, on account of his greater leniency, had fallen a
victim to the more energetic and violent Critias. And yet it
was this very Eratosthenes who had, in accordance with a
decree of the Thirty, arrested Polemarchus in the open street,
carried him off to prison, and accomplished his judicial murder.
When his conduct was submitted to public investigation,’ Lysias
came forward in person as his accuser, although, as he says
himself, he had never before been in court, either on his own
business or on that of any other person.? He attacks Erato-
sthenes, in the first instance, on account of liis participation in
the death of Polemarchus and the other misfortunes which he
had brought upon his family; and then enters on the whole
career and public life of Eratosthenes, who had also belonged
to the Four-hundred, and was one of the Five Ephori whom
the Heterie, or secret associations, got elected after the battle
of Aigospotami: and in this he maintains, that Theramenes,
whose leniency and moderation had been so much extolled,
had, by his intrigues, been a principal cause of all the calami-
ties that had befallen the state. The whole speech is pervaded
_ by a feeling of the strongest conviction, and by that natural
warmth which we should expect in the case of a subject so im-
mediately affecting the speaker. He concludes with a most
vehement appeal to the judges: ‘I shall desist from any further
accusations ; ye have heard, seen, and experienced :—ye know !—
decide then !”

§ 2. This speech forms a great epoch in the life of Lysias,
in his employments and studies, in the style of his oratory, and
we may add, in the whole history of Attic prose. Up to that
time, Lysias had practised rhetoric merely as a Sophist of the
Sicilian school, instructing the young and composing school-
exercises. The peculiarity and mannerism, which must have

1 εὐθύνη. 3 οὔτ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ πώποτε οὔτε ἀλλότρια πράγματα πράξας, Eratosth. ὃ 3.

140 THE NEW CULTIVATION OF ORATORY BY LYSIAS.

naturally resulted from such an application of eloquence, were
the less likely to be escaped in the case of Lysias, as he was
entirely under the influence of the school which had produced
Gorgias. Lysias shared with Gorgias in the endeayour to
evince the power of oratory, by giving probability to the im-
probable, and credibility to the incredible; hence resulted a
love of paradox, and an unnatural and forced arrangement of
the materials, excessive artifice of ornament in the details, and
a total want of that natural earnestness which springs from
conviction and a feeling of truth. The difference between these
teachers of rhetoric consisted in this one feature: that Gorgias,
who had naturally a taste for smart and glittering ornaments,
went much farther than Lysias in the attempt to charm the
ear with euphonies, to captivate the imagination with splendid
diction, and to blind the understanding with the magic of ora-
tory ; whereas Lysias (who was, at the bottom, a man of good,
plain common sense, and who had imbibed the shrewdness and
refinement of an Attic mind by his constant intercourse with
the Athenians, having belonged to their party even at Thurii),'
combined, with the usual arts of sophistic oratory, more of his
own peculiarities—more of subtle novelty in the conception, and
more of terseness and vigour in the expression.

We derive this notion of the earlier style of Lysias principally
from Plato’s Phedrus, one of the earliest works of that great
philosopher,’ the object of which is to exalt the genuine love
of truth high above that sporting with thoughts and words to
which the Sophists confined themselves. The dialogue intro-
duces us to Phedrus, a young friend of Socrates, whom an
essay of Lysias has filled with enthusiastic admiration. This
essay he reads to Socrates at his request, and partly by serious
argument, partly by a more sportive vein of reasoning, is led to
recognise the nothingness of this sort of oratory. It is pro-
bable that Plato did not borrow the essay in question immedi-
ately from Lysias, but composed it himself, in order to give a

1 Lysias left Thurii when, after the failure of the Sicilian expedition, the Lace-
dzmonian party there got the upper hand, and domineered over the Athenian
colonists.

2 According to the old tradition, it was written before the death of Socrates (Ol.
95, I. B.O. 399).

SOPHISTICAL RHETORIC OF LYSIAS. 141

comprehensive specimen of the faults which he wished to point
out. Its theme is, to persuade a beautiful youth that he should
bestow his affections upon one who loved him not, rather than
upon a lover. As the subject of the essay is quite of a sophistic
nature, so the essay itself is merely the product of an inventive
genius, totally devoid of spirit and earnestness. The arguments
are brought forward one after the other with the greatest exact-
ness, but there is no unity of thought, no general comprehension
of ideas, no necessary connexion of one part with the other ;
nor are the different members grouped and massed together so
as to form one consistent whole: hence, the wearisome mo-
notony of conjunctions by which the sentences are linked
together.'’ The prevalent collocation is the antithesis tricked
out with all its old-fashioned ornaments, the Jsocola, Homeo-
teleuta, & The diction is free from the poetic ostentation of
Gorgias ; but it is so carefully formed, and with so many arti-
ficial turns, that we are at once struck with the labour which
such a school-exercise must have cost the writer.

§ 3. In the extant collection of the works of Lysias we have
no school-exercise (μελέτη) of this kind, and generally, no
speech anterior in date to the accusation of Eratosthenes: we
have only those works which he composed in his riper years,
and which exhibit the more matured taste of their author.’
Among these, however, there is one which presents traces of
his earlier declamation ; the reason of which is to be sought in
the difference of subject. The Funeral Oration for the
Athenians who fell in the Corinthian war, which was written by
Lysias after Ol. 96, 3. B.c. 394, but could hardly have been
delivered in public, belongs to a class of speeches formally dis-

1 Tn this short essay, three sentences begin with ἔτι δὲ. .., and four with καὶ
μέν δὴ...

2 In the passages (p. 233) : ἐκεῖνοι γὰρ καὶ (a) ἀγαπήσουσι, καὶ (Ὁ) ἀκολουθήσουσι,
καὶ (6) τὰς θύρας ἥξουσι, καὶ (α) μάλιστα ἡσθήσονται, καὶ (β) οὐκ ἐλαχίστην χάριν
εἴσονται, καὶ (γ) πολλὰ ἀγαθὰ αὐτοῖς εὔξονται, the sentences a, β, Ὕ are manifestly
divided into three only for the sake of an equipoise of homeoteleuta.

8 With the exception, as it seems, of the singular little speech, πρὸς τοὺς συνου-
σιαστὰς κακολογιῶν, which is neither a judicial speech nor yet a mere μελέτη. It
seems to be based upon real occurrences, but is altogether sophistical in the execu-
tion. Itis a tract in which Lysias renounces the friendship of those with whom
he had been on terms of intimacy and friendship.

142 THE NEW CULTIVATION OF ORATORY BY LYSIAS.

tinguished from the deliberative’ and judicial’ orations, because
it was not designed to produce any practical result. On this
very account, the sort of speeches to which we refer, and which
are called ‘ speeches for display,’ ‘ show-speeches,’* were removed
from the influence of the impulses which imparted a freer and
more natural movement to orations of the practical kind. They
were particularly cultivated by the Sophists, who professed to
be able to praise and blame everything; and, even after the
time of the Thirty, they retained their sophistic form. Such
a work is the Epitaphius of Lysias. This oration, following
the fashion of such ‘ show-speeches’ (ἐπιδείξεις), goes through
the historical and mythical ages, stringing together the great
deeds of the Athenians in chronological order; dwelling at
great length on the mythical proofs of Athenian bravery and
humanity, such as their war with the Amazons, their exertions
in obtaining the sepulture of the heroes who fell at Thebes, and
their reception of the Heracleide ; then recounting the exploits
of the Athenians during the Persian invasion; but passing
rapidly over the Peloponnesian war ;—in direct contrast to the
plan of Thucydides ;—and in general laying the greatest stress
on those topics which were most adapted for panegyrical decla-
mation.* These ideas are worked out in so forced and artificial
a manner, that we cannot wonder at those scholars who have
failed to recognise in this speech the same Lysias that we find
in the judicial orations. The whole essay is pervaded by a
regular monotonous parallelism of sentences, the antithesis
being often one of words rather than one of thoughts ἢ Polus,
or any other pupil of Gorgias, could hardly have revelled more
in assonances,’ and such-like jingling rhetoric.

1 συμβουλευτικὸν γένος, deliberativum genus.

2 δικανικὸν judicrale genus.

3 ἐπιδεικτικὸν, πανηγυρικὸν γένος.

4 The only passage in which he evinces any real interest in his subject is that in
which he extols those who put down the tyranny of the Thirty, and among them,
the strangers who fought for the democracy on that occasion, and consequently
obtained in death the same privileges as the citizens themselves (§ 66).

* As when Lysias says (δ 25): ‘sacrificing their body, but for virtue’s sake
setting no value on their life :’ where body and life (ψυχὴ), form no real opposi-
tion, but only a ψευδὴς ἀντίθεσις, according to the striking remark of Aristotle,
λοι. TIT., 9 extr,

§ παρηχήσεις, such as μνήμην παρὰ τῆς φήμης λάβων, Epitaph. ὃ 3.

CHANGE IN THE ORATORY OF LYSIAS. 143

§ 4. It is probable that Lysias would never have escaped
from this forced and artificial style, had not a real feeling of
pain and anger, like that which was excited in his bosom by the
audacious impudence of the ex-tyrant Eratosthenes, given a
more lively and natural flow, both to his spirits and to his
speech. Not that we fail to recognise, even in the speech
against Eratosthenes, the school in which Lysias had lived up
to that time ; for the tendency to divide, compare, and oppose,
peeps out in the midst of the most violent and energetic decla-
mation. But this tendency is here subordinated to the earnest
vehemence with which Lysias unveils the baseness of his
opponent.

This occasion convinced Lysias what style of oratory was
both the most suited to his own character and also least likely
to fail in producing an effect upon the judges. He now began,
in the soth year of his life, to follow the trade of Antiphon,
and wrote speeches for such private individuals as could not
trust to their own skill in addressing a court. For this object
a plain, unartificial style, was the best suited, because the
citizens, who called in the aid of the speech writer, were just
those who had no skill in speaking and no knowledge of rhe-
toric : and thus Lysias was obliged to lay himself out for such
a style, in which, of course, he became more and more con-
firmed by habit. The consequence was, that for his contempo-
raries, and for all ages, Lysias stands forth as the first, and, in
many respects, the most perfect pattern of the plain (or homely)
style.

Lysias distinguished, with the accuracy of a dramatist,
between the different characters into whose mouths he put his
speeches, and made every one, the young and the old, the rich
and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, speak according
to his quality and condition: this is what the ancient critics
praise under the name of his Ethopwia.* The prevalent tone,

1 See Quinctil., Znstit. Or. IIL. 8, ὃ 50, 51: Nam sunt multe a Grecis Latinis-
que composite orationes, quibus alii uterentur, ad quorum conditionem vitamque
aptanda, que dicebantur, fuerunt :—ideoque Lysias optime videtur in iis, que
scribebat indoctis, servasse veritatis fidem.

* ὁ ἰσχνὸς, ἀφελὴς χαρακτήρ, tenue dicendi genus.

% Dionys. Halic. de Lysia jud., c. 8,9, p. 467 Reiske, Comp. de Iso, c. 3, Pp.
589.

144 THE NEW CULTIVATION OF ORATORY BY LYSIAS.

however, was that of the average man; accordingly, Lysias
adhered to the looser collocation of sentences,’ which is observed
in ordinary conversation, and did not trouble himself with the
structure of periods, which were just coming into fashion :
although, at the same time, he shows that he understands the
art of combining sentences in one whole; and, when the occa~
sion serves, he can group his thoughts together and present
them to his hearers with a vivid conception of their unity.” The
figures of thought, as they are called, which we have mentioned
above as interruptions to the natural current of our feelings,
are used by Lysias very sparingly; but, at the same time, he
altogether neglects the figures of speech, which made up the
old-fashioned ornaments of rhetoric, and indeed, the more so in
proportion as the tone of the particular speech is plainer and
more simple. In the individual words and expressions Lysias
keeps strictly to the ordinary language of everyday life, and
repudiates all the trickery of poetic diction, compound words,
and metaphors. His object is to supply his client with as many
convincing arguments as he can deliver before the judges in the
short time which the water-clock (clepsydra) allowed to the
plaintiff and defendant in an action. The procemium is designed
solely to produce a favourable impression, and to conciliate the
good will of the judges: the narrative part of the speech, for
which Lysias was particularly famous, is always natural, inte-
resting, and lively, and is often relieved by a few mimic touches
which give it a wonderful air of reality ; the proofs and confu-
tations are distinguished by a clearness of reasoning, and a
boldness and confidence of argument, which seem to leave no
room for doubt; in a word, the speeches of Lysias are just
what they ought to be in order to obtain a favourable decision,
which was the only object proposed by their writer; an object
in which, as it seems, he often succeeded.

§ 5. The most conspicuous among the speeches of Lysias are

1 λέξις διαλελυμένη, nearly the same as εἰρομένη.

5 Ἢ συστρέφουσα τὰ νοήματα καὶ στρογγύλως λέξις, as it is called by Dionys.
Hal., de Lysia jud., 6, p. 464. He differs from Thucydides in placing the con-
firmatory sentences and participles sometimes before and sometimes after the
main sentence: 6. g. the external circumstances first, and the subjective reasons
afterwards.

SPEECH AGAINST AGORATUS. 145

those which are designed to resent the injuries brought upon
Athens and her individual citizens, in the time of their depres-
sion, by means of the oligarchical intrigues which preceded the
tyranny of the Thirty, and by means of that tyranny itself, and
in which Lysias and his family had so grievously suffered. To
this class belongs the speech against Agoratus, which, among
his extant orations, immediately follows that against Erato-
sthenes ;' and, although not delivered in the author’s name, pre-
sents many points of resemblance to the latter. By suggesting
that the party accused is the common enemy of the judges and
of the accuser, the procemium at once conciliates the good will
of the judges. It draws the attention of the audience to a
highly interesting narrative, in which the fall of the democracy
is connected with the ruin of Dionysodorus, whom the accuser
seeks to avenge. ‘This narrative, which at the same time un-
folds the state of the case, and is premised as the main point in
it,” begins with the battle of Aigos-potami, and details all the
detestable manceuvres by which Theramenes endeavoured to
deliver up his native city, unarmed, into the power of her
enemies. The fear of Theramenes lest the leaders of the army
should detect and thwart his intrigues, led to the guilt of
Agoratus ; according to the orator’s account of the matter,
Agoratus willingly undertook to represent the commanders as
enemies of the peace, in consequence of which they were appre-
hended and judicially murdered by the Council under the Thirty
Tyrants. This narrative, which is given in the most vivid
colours, and, in its main features, is supported by evidence, con-
cludes, with the same artful and well-contrived simplicity which
reigns throughout the speech, in a scene in the dungeon, where
Dionysodorus, after disposing of his property leaves it as a
sacred duty to be performed by his brother and brother-in-law,

1 Tt was delivered Ol. 94, 4. B.c. 401, and is an accusation ἀπαγωγῆς, i.e. di-
rected towards an immediate execution of the punishment, because the accuser
regards Agoratus as a murderer, who, in defiance of the established law against
murderers, still frequented the temples and public assemblies.

2 The διήγησις is elsewhere used by Lysias as the κατάστασις, or definition of the
status cause, and immediately follows the exordium ; whereas Antiphon follows up
the exordium, without the introduction of any κατάστασις, by a part of the proofs,
6. g. the direct proof or formal nullification, and then at last introduces the διήγησις
to pave the way for other proofs, such as those springing from probability.

Vou. II. L

146 THE NEW CULTIVATION OF ORATORY BY LYSIAS.

the accuser, and all his friends, nay, even by his unborn child,
that they should take vengeance for his death on Agoratus,
who, according to the Athenian way of viewing the matter, was
considered as the chief author of it. The accuser now briefly
sketches the mischiefs done by the Thirty—who could not have
got their power without the intrigues here referred to ; confutes
some pleas which Agoratus might bring forward in his justifica-
tion, by a careful scrutiny of all the circumstances attending
his denunciation ; then enlarges upon the whole life of Agoratus ;
the meanness of his family, his usurpation of the rights of
citizenship, his dealings with the liberators at Phyle, with whom
he sought to identify himself,’ but was rejected by them as a
murderer; then justifies the harsh measure of the summary
process (ἀπαγωγῆ), which the accuser had thought fit to
employ against Agoratus ; and finally proves, that the amnesty
between the two parties at Athens did not apply to Agoratus.
The epilogue very emphatically lays before the judges the
dilemma in which they were placed, of either condemning
Agoratus, or justifying the execution of those persons whose
ruin he had effected. The excellence of this brief but weighty
speech will be perceived even from this summary of it: it lies
open to only one censure, which is generally brought against
Lysias by the old rhetoricians—that the proofs of his accusa-
tion, which follow the narrative, hang together too loosely, and
have not the unity which might easily have been produced by a
more accurate attention to a closer connexion of thought.

§ 6. Lysias was, in these and the following years, wonderfully
prolific as an orator. The ancients were acquainted with 425
orations which passed under his name; of these, 250 are recog-
nized as genuine: we have 35 of them, which, by the order in
which they have come down to us, appear to have belonged to
two separate collections.’ One of these collections originally
comprised all the speeches of Lysias arranged according to the
causes pleaded in them, a principle of arrangement which we

1 Here an obscure point remains to be settled—what induced Agoratus to join
the exiles at Phyle? The orator gives no reason for this conduct, but only adduces
it as a proof of his shameless impudence, § 77.

2 According to the discovery made by a young friend of the Author, which will
probably be soon brought out in a complete and finished state.

:
.

ORATIONS OF LYSIAS. 147

have already discovered in the case of Antiphon. Of this col-
lection we have but a mere fragment, containing the last of the
speeches on manslaughter, the speeches about impiety, and the
first of the speeches about injuries:’ either from accident or
from caprice, the Funeral Oration is placed among these. The
second collection begins with the important speech against
Eratosthenes. It contains no complete class of speeches, but
is clearly a selection from the works of Lysias, the choice of
speeches being guided by their historical interest. Conse-
quently, a considerable number of these speeches carry us deeply
into the history of the time before and after the tyranny of the
Thirty, and are among the most important authorities for the
events of this period with which we are not sufficiently acquainted
from other sources. As might be expected, none of these
speeches is anterior in date to the speech against Eratosthenes :ἢ
nor can we show that any one of them is subsequent to Ol. 98,
2. B.C. 387,° although Lysias is said to have lived till Ol. 100,
2 or 3 B.c. 378.4 The arrangement is neither chronological,
nor according to the causes pleaded; but is an arbitrary com-
pound of both.

1 The speech for Eratosthenes is an ἀπολογία φονοῦ, and is followed by the speech
against Simon, and the following περὶ τραύματος, which also belong to the φονικοὲ
λόγοι ; then come the speeches περὶ ἀσεβείας, for Callias, against Andocides, and
about the Olive: then follow the speeches κακολογιῶν, to his comrades, for the
warriors, and against Theomnestus. The speech about the Olive is cited by Har-
pocration, v. σηκός, as contained ἐν τοῖς τῆς ἀσεβείας, and so his τῶν συμβολαίων

λόγοι, ἐπιτροπικοὶ λόγοι, are also quoted.

2 The speech of Polystratus does not belong to the time of the Four-hundred,
but was delivered at the scrutiny (δοκιμασία) which Polystratus had to undergo as
an officer of his tribe, and at which he was charged with having belonged to the
Four-hundred. The speech δήμου κατυλύσεως ἀπολογία was delivered under similar
circumstances.

3 The speech about the property of Aristophanes probably falls under this
year.

4 A speech in the first series (that against Theomnestus) was written later, —Ol.
98, 4, Or 99, I. B.C. 384.

148

CHAPTER XXXVI.

ISOCRATES.

§ 1. Early training of Isocrates; but slightly influenced by Socrates. ὃ 2. School
of Isocrates ; its great repute ; his attempts to influence the politics of the day
without thoroughly understanding them. § 3. The form of a speech the prin-
cipal matter in his judgment. § 4. New developement which he gave to prose
composition, ὃ 5. His structure of periods. ὃ 6. Smoothness and evenness of
his style. § 7. He prefers the panegyrical oratory to the forensic.

§ 1. TT is very doubtful whether Plato would have accorded

to IsocratEes in his maturer age those high praises
which he has bestowed upon him in the earlier years of his life,
or would have preferred him so decidedly to Lysias. Isocrates,
the son of Theodorus, was born at Athens in Ol. 86, 1. B.c.
436, and was, consequently, about twenty-four years younger
than Lysias. He was, no doubt, a well-conducted youth, eager
to acquire information ; and, to get himself thoroughly educated,
became a pupil, not only of the Sophists Gorgias and Tisias, but
also of Socrates. In the circle of his friends so strong an im-
pression was created in his favour, that it was believed that ‘ he
would not only in oratory leave all other orators behind him
like children, but that a divine instinct would lead him on to
still greater things. For that there was an earnest love of
wisdom in the heart of the man.’ Such is the prophecy con-
cerning him which Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates him-
self. Notwithstanding this, however, Isocrates seems to have
made no use of the great philosopher beyond acquiring from
him such a superficial knowledge of moral philosophy as would
enable him to give a colouring of science to his professional
exertions. Rhetoric was, after all, his main occupation, and no
age before his had seen so much care and labour expended on
this art. Accordingly, Isocrates essentially belongs to the
Sophists, differmg from them only in this, that he could not
any longer oppose the Socratic philosophy by the bold proposal

SCHOOL OF ISOCRATES. 149

of making all things equally true by argument : on the con-
trary, he considered speech as only a means of setting forth, in
as pleasing and brilliant a manner as possible, some opinion,
which, though not very profound, was, at any rate, quite praise-
worthy in itself. If, however, he was less concerned about en-
larging his ideas and getting a deeper insight into the reality of
things, or, in general, comprehending the truth with greater
clearness and accuracy, than about perfecting the outward form
and ornamental finish of his style, it follows that Plato, if he
had criticized him when farther advanced in his career, must
have classed him among the artizans, who strove after a mere
semblance of truth in opposition to the true philosophers.

§ 2. Isocrates had a strong desire to give a political turn to
the art of speaking which, with the exception of the panegyrical
species, had hitherto been cultivated chiefly for the contests of
the courts :*? but bashfulness and physical weakness prevented
him from ascending himself the bema in the Pnyx. Conse-
quently, he set up a school, in which he principally taught
political oratory ; and so sedulously did he instruct young men
in rhetoric, that his industry was fully recognized by his con-
temporaries, and his school became the first and most flourishing
in Greece.* Cicero compares this school to the wooden horse of
the Trojan war, because a similar number of oratorical heroes
proceeded from it. Public speakers and historians were his
principal auditors ; and the reason of this was, that Isocrates
always selected for his exercises such practical subjects as
appeared to him both profitable and dignified, and chiefly pro-
posed as a study to his hearers the political events of his own -
time—a circumstance which he has himself alleged as the main
distinction between himself and the Sophists.* | The orations
which Isocrates composed were mostly destined for the school ;

1 See the speech περὶ ἀντιδόσεως, ὃ 30, where he justly repudiates the charge,
that he was corrupting the youth by teaching them to turn right into wrong in the
courts of justice. Comp. § 15.

2 τὸ δικανικὸν γένος. Isocrates, in his speech against the Sophists, § 19, blames
earlier rhetoricians for making the δικάζεσθαι the chief point, and so bringing for-
ward the least agreeable side of rhetoric.

3 He soon had about roo hearers, each of whom paid a fee of rooo drachme
(one-sixth of a talent).

4 See especially the panegyric on Helen, § 5, 6.

150 ISOCRATES.

the law-speeches which he wrote for actual use in the courts
were merely a secondary consideration. However, after the
name of Isocrates had become famous, and the circle of his
scholars and friends extended over all the countries inhabited by
Greeks, Isocrates calculated upon a more extended publicity for
many of his orations than his school would have furnished, and
especially for those which touched on the public transactions of
Greece: and their literary circulation, by means of copies and
recitations, obtained for him a wider influence than a public
delivery from the bema would have done. In this manner,
Isocrates might, even from the recesses of his school, have pro-
duced a beneficial effect on his native land, which, torn with
internal discord, was striving against the powerful Macedonian ;
and, to say the truth, we cannot but allow that there is an effort
to attain this great object in those literary productions which
he addressed at different times, to the Greeks in general, to the
Athenians, to Philip, or to still remoter princes ;' nay, we some-
times find in them a certain amount of plain-speaking ;? but it is
quite clear that Isocrates had none of those profound views of
policy which could alone have given weight and efficiency to
his suggestions. He shows the very best intentions, always
exhorts to concord and peace, lives in the hope that every state
will give up its extravagant claims, set free its dependent allies,
and place itself on an equal footing with them, and that, in con-
sequence of these happy changes, something great will be under-
taken against the barbarians. We find nowhere in Isocrates
any clear and well-based conception of the principles by which
Greece may be guided to this golden age of unity and concord,
especially of the rights of the states which would be affected by
it, and the claims which would have to be set aside. In the

1 In this manner Isocrates endeavoured to work upon the island of Cyprus,
where at that time the Greek state of Salamis had raised itself into importance.
His Zvagoras is a panegyric on that excellent ruler, addressed to his son and suc-
cessor, Nicocles. The tract Nicocles is an exhortation to the Salaminians to obey
their new ruler; and his harangue to Nicocles is an exhortation addressed to the
young ruler, on the duties and virtues of a sovereign.

2 1 am accustomed to write my orations with plainness of speech,’ says he in
his letter to Archidamus (IX.), § 13. This letter is undoubtedly genuine; but the
following, that to Dionysius (X.), is, as clearly, the work of a later rhetorician of
the Asiatic school.

SPEECHES OF ISOCRATES. 151

speech about the peace, which was published during the Social
War, he advises the Athenians, in the first part, to grant inde-
pendence to the rebellious islanders; in the second part, he
recommends them to give up their maritime supremacy—
judicious and excellent proposals, which would only have the
effect of annihilating the power of Athens, and checking every
tendency to manly exertion. In his Areopagiticus he declares
that he sees no safety for Athens, save in the restoration of
that democracy which Solon had founded, and Cleisthenes had
revived ; as if it were possible to restore, without the least
trouble in the world, a constitution, which, in the course of
time, had undergone such manifold changes, and, with it, the
old simplicity of manner, which had altogether disappeared. In
his Panegyricus, he exhorts all the Greeks to give up their ani-
mosities, and to direct their ambition against the barbarians ;
the two chief states, Athens and Sparta, having so arranged as
to divide the hegemony or leadership between them: a plan
very sensible at the time, and not altogether impracticable, but
requiring a totally different basis from that which Isocrates lays
down ; for presuming a violent objection on the part of the
Lacedzmonians, he proves to them, from the mythical history
of early times, that Athens was more deserving of the leader-
ship than Sparta.’ The only true and correctly conceived part
of the speech is that in which he displays the divided condition
of Greece, and the facility with which the Greeks, if only united,
could make conquests in Asia. Lastly, in his Philip, a tract
inscribed to the king of Macedon, when this prince, in conse-
quence of the treaty concluded by Aischines, had placed Athens
in a disagreeable predicament, he exhorts the Macedonian to
come forward as mediator between the dissident states of Greece
—the wolf as mediator in the quarrels of the sheep—and then
to march along with their united force against the Persians—
the very thing which Philip wished to do, but then he desired

1 What Isocrates says in this speech (written about Ol. 100, 1. B.C. 380): τὴν
μὲν ἡμετέραν πόλιν pddiov ἐπὶ ταῦτα προαγαγεῖν, at all events does not accord with
the result of the negotiations given in Xenoph., Hellen. VI. 5, ὃ 3, 4; VII. 1,
§ 8 and 14 (Ol. 102, 4. B.c. 369); where Athens renounces the only practical
method of sharing the Hegemony, by landand water, which the Lacedemonians
had offered.

152 ISOCRATES.

to do so in the only possible way by which it could be brought
about, namely, as their leader, and, under this name, as the
ruler of the free states of Greece.

How strange, then, must have been the feelings of Isocrates,
when news was brought to him of the downfal of Athenian
power and Greek independence at Cheronea! His benevolent
hopes must have been so rudely dashed to the ground by this
one stroke, that probably it was disappointment, no less than
patriotic grief for the loss of freedom, that induced him to put
an end to his life.

§ 3. The manner in which he speaks of them himself makes
it evident that his heart was but little affected by the subjects
treated of in these speeches. In his Philip he mentions that
he had treated on the same theme—the exhortation to the
Greeks to unite themselves against the barbarians—in his Pane-
gyricus also, and dwells on the difficulty of discussing the same
subject in two different orations ; ‘ especially since,’ to use his
own words, ‘ the first published is.so accurately composed that
even our detractors. imitate it, and tacitly admire it more than
those who praise it most extravagantly.”’ In the Panathenaicus,
an eulogium on Athens, written by Isocrates when far advanced
in age, he says, that he had given up all earlier kinds of rhetoric,
and had devoted himself to the composition of speeches which
concerned the welfare of the city and of Greece in general ;
and, consequently, had composed discourses ‘full of thoughts,
and decked out with not a few antitheses and parisoses, and
those other figures which shine forth in the schools of rhetoric
and compel the hearers to signify their applause by shouting
and clapping ;” at the present time, however, being 94 years
old, he did not think it becoming in him to use this style, but
would speak as every one thought himself capable of speaking
if he chose, though no one would be able to do so who had not
bestowed upon his style the necessary attention and labour.’
It is clear, that, while Isocrates pretends to be casting his glance
over all Europe and Asia, and to have his soul filled with anxiety
for his native land, the object which he really has in his eye is

1 Tsocrat. Philipp., § 11. See the similar assertion in the Panegyricus itself
§ 4. 2 Isocrat. Panathen., ὃ 2.

SPEECHES OF ISOCRATES. 153

the approbation of the school and the triumph of his art over
all rivals. So that, after all, these great panegyrical orations
belong to the class of school-rhetoric, no less than the Praise of
Helen and the Busiris, which Isocrates composed immediately
after the pattern of the Sophists, who frequently selected mythi-
cal subjects for their encomiastic or vituperative discourses.
In the Praise of Helen he blames another rhetorician for writing
a defence of this much maligned heroine, after having professed
to write her eulogium. In the Busiris he shows the Sophist
Polycrates how he should have drawn up his encomium of this
barbarous tyrant, and also incidentally sets him right with
regard to an ill selected topic which he had introduced into an
accusation of Socrates, composed by him as a sophistical exer-
cise. Polycrates had given Socrates the credit of educating
Alcibiades; ‘a fact which no one had remarked, but which
redounded rather to the credit than to the discredit of Socrates,
seeing that Alcibiades had so far excelled all other men.?' In
this passage Isocrates merely criticizes Polycrates for an inju-
dicious choice of topics, without expressing any opinion upon
the character of Socrates, or the justice of his sentence ; which
were considerations foreign to the question. Isocrates attempts
to pass off his own rhetorical studies for philosophy,’ but he
really had very little acquaintance with the philosophical strivings
of his age. Otherwise he would not have included in one class,
as ‘the contentious philosophers,’ the Eleatics Zeno and Me-
lissus, whose sole object was to discover the truth, and the
Sophists Protagoras and Gorgias.’

ὃ 4. Little as we may be disposed, after all these strictures,
to regard Isocrates as a great statesman or philosopher, he is
not only eminent, but constitutes an epoch in himself, as a
rhetorician or artist of language. Over and above the great
care which he took about the formation of his style, Isocrates

1 Busiris, § 5.

2 ¢.g. in the speech to Demonicus, § 3; Nicocles, § 1; Concerning the Peace,
8 5; Busiris, ὃ 7; Against the Sophists, ὃ 14; Panathenaicus, ὃ 263. In his περὲ
ἀντιδόσεως, ὃ 30, he opposes the περὶ τὰς δίκας καλινδούμενου to the περὶ τὴν
φιλοσοφίαν διατρίψαντες.

3 Praise of Helen, § 2—6: ἡ περὶ τὰς ἔριδας φιλοσοφία. Similarly in the speech
περὶ ἀντιδόσεως, § 268, he mixes up the physical speculations of the Eleatics and
Pythagoreans with the sophisms of Gorgias.

154 ISOCRATES.

had a decided genius for the art of rhetoric ; and, when we read
his periods, we may well believe what he tells us, that the
Athenians, alive as they were to beauties of this kind, felt a
real enthusiasm for his writings, and friends and enemies vied
in imitating their magic elegance. When we read aloud the
panegyrical orations of Isocrates, we feel that, although they
want the vigour and profundity of Thucydides or Aristotle,
there is a power in them which we miss in every former work
of rhetoric—a power which works upon the mind as well as
upon the ear; we are carried along by a full stream of harmo-
nious diction, which is strikingly different from the rugged
sentences of Thucydides and the meagre style of Lysias. The
services which Isocrates has performed in this respect reach far
beyond the limits of his own school. Without his reconstruc-
tion of the style of Attic oratory we could have had no Demo-
sthenes and no Cicero; and, through these the school of Iso-
crates has extended its influence even to the oratory of our own
day.

Isocrates started from the style which had been most culti- ©

vated up to his time, namely, the antithetical.’ In his earlier
labours he took as much pains with this symmetrical structure
as any Sophist could have done: but in the more flourishing
period of his art he contrived to melt down the rigidity and
stiffness of the antithesis, by breaking through the direct and
immediate opposition of sentences, and by marshalling them in
successive groups and in a longer series.

Isocrates has always one leading idea, which is in most cases
of suitable importance, fertile in its consequences, and capable
of evoking not only thought but feeling ; hence his fondness for
general political subjects, which furnished him best with such
topics. In these leading thoughts he seizes certain points op-
posed to one another, such as the old and the new times, or the
power of the Greeks and that of the barbarians; and expanding
the leading idea in a regular series of sequences and conclusions,
he introduces at every step in the composition the propositions
which contradict it in its details, and in this way unfolds an
abundance of variations always pervaded and marked by a re-
currence of the original subject; so that, although there is great

1 ἀντικειμένη λέξις.

a

STYLE OF ISOCRATES. 155

variety, the whole may be comprehended at one glance. At
the same time, Isocrates is careful that the ear may be cogni-
zant of the antitheses which are presented to the thoughts, and
he manages this after the fashion of the older Sophists: but he
differs from them, partly in not caring so much about the
assonances of individual words, as about the rhythm of whole
sentences ; partly by seeking to break up the more exact cor-
respondence of sentences into a system less marked by the stiff
regularity of its members; and partly by introducing into the
longer sets of antithetical sentences, a gradual increase in the
force and intensity of his language ; this he effected by extending
the sentences, especially in the third member and at the end ;’
and thus an entirely new vigour of movement was given to the
old antithetical construction.

δ 5. The ancients recognize Isocrates as the author or first
introducer of the circle of language, as it was called,’ although
the Sophist Thrasymachus, a contemporary of Antiphon, is
acknowledged to have been master of ‘the diction which con-
centrates the ideas and expresses them roundly.” It was the
same Thrasymachus whose chief aim it was to have the power
of either rousing or quieting the anger of his hearers (e.g. the
judges), and, in general, of working at pleasure on the feelings
of men. ‘There was a work of his called ‘The Commiseration
Speeches ’ (ἔλεοι), and it is to be remarked that this tendency
of his eloquence must have induced him at the same time to
give an easier and more lively flow to his sentences. It was
Isocrates, however, above all others, who by a judicious choice
of subjects, imparted to his language the harmonious effect
which is so closely connected with the circle of language, as it -
is called. By this we understand such a formation and distri-
bution of the periods that the several members follow one
another as integral parts of one whole, and the general conclusion

1 “Tn composite sentences,’ says Demetrius, de Elocut., ὃ 18, ‘the last mem-
ber must be longer than the others.’ 2 κύκλος, orbis orationis.

3 ἡ συστρέφουσα τὰ διανοήματα Kal στρογγύλως ἐκφέρουσα λέξις. See Theophras-
tus (apud Dionys. de Lys. judic., p. 464), who lays claim to this art on behalf of
Lysias also. What is meant by the στρογγύλον appears clearly from the example
which Hermogenes (Walz. Rhetores III., p. 704) has given from Demosthenes :
ὥσπερ γὰρ, εἴτις ἐκείνων ἑάλω, σὺ τάδε οὐκ ἂν ἔγραψας" οὕτως, ἂν od viv ἁλῷς, ἄλλος
οὐ γράψει. Such a sentence is like a circle which necessarily returns to itself.

156 ISOCRATES.

is expected by the hearer in the very place where it occurs, and
is, as it were, almost heard before it is uttered.’ This im-
pression is produced partly by the union of the several sentences
in larger masses, partly by the relation of these masses to one
another, so that, without counting or measuring, we feel that
there is a sort of harmony which a little, either more or less,
would utterly destroy. This is not merely true of primary and
subordinate sentences, in the proper sense of the word, which
are mutually developed by the logical subordination of thoughts
to one another,’ but also holds of the co-ordinate masses of
opposed sentences (in that antithetical style * to which Isocrates’
longer periods mostly belong), if a periodical cadence is intro-
duced into them. ‘The ancients themselves compare a period
in which there is a true equilibrium of all parts with a dome *
in which all the stones tend with equal weight to the middle
point. It is obvious that this must be regulated by the rhe-
torical accent, which is the same in oratory that the grammati-
cal accents are in language, and the arsis and thesis in rhythm:
these accents must regularly correspond to one another, and
each fully occupy its own place: an improper omission, and
especially a loss of the fuller accent at the end of the period, is
most sensibly felt by a fine and correct ear. The ancients,
however, like the moderns, rather leave this main point to be
fixed by a sort of general feeling, and reserve definite rules for
the subordinate details, upon which Isocrates has bestowed most
extraordinary pains in his panegyrical speeches. Euphonious
combinations of sound, avoidance of hiatus, certain rhythmical
feet at the beginning and end of sentences, these are the objects
which he aims at with labour far more than proportioned to the
effects which they produce on the hearer. This sort of prose has,
in these particulars, a great resemblance to tragedy, which
also avoided the hiatus more than any other kind of poetic
composition.’ :

1 Compare Cicero’s admirable remarks, Orator. 53, 177, 178.

2 Such as temporal, causal, conditional, and concessive protases, with their
apodoses. 3 ἀντικειμένη λέξις. 4 περιφερὴς στέγη.

5 The ancients frequently express their well-founded opinion, that the juxta-
position of vowels in words and collocations of words produ€es a soft (molle quid-
dam, Cicero) and melodious effect (μέλος, is the expression of Demetrius), such as
was suitable to epic poetry and the old lonic prose. The contraction and _elision
of vowels, on the other hand, make language more plain and compact; and, when

STYLE OF ISOCRATES. 157

§ 6. Isocrates was justly impressed with the necessity of
having a certain class of subjects for the developement of this
particular style. He is accustomed to combine the substance
and form of his oratory, as when he reckons himself among
those ‘who wrote no speeches about private matters, but
Hellenic, political, and panegyrical orations, which, as all persons
must allow, are more nearly akin to the musical and metrical
language of the poets than to those speeches which are heard in
the law-courts.’’ The full stream of Isocratic diction neces-
sitates the recurrence of certain leading ideas, such as are
capable of being brought out in the details with the greatest
possible variety, and of being proved by a continually increasing
weight of conviction. The predominance of the rhetoric of
Isocrates consequently banished from the Attic style more and
more of that subtilty and acuteness which seeks to give a
definite and accurate expression to every idea, and to obtain this
object a sacrifice was made of the correspondence of expressions,
grammatical forms, and connexions of sentences, which formed
the basis of that impressive and significant abruptness of diction
by which the style of Sophocles and Thucydides is distinguished.
The flowing language and long periods of Isocrates, if they had
had any of this abruptness, would have lost that intelligibility
without which the hearers would not have been able to foresee
what was coming, and to feel the gratification resulting from a
fulfilment of their expectations. In Thucydides, on the con-
trary, we can scarcely feel confident of having seized the mean-
ing even when we get to the end of the sentence. Hence it is
that Isocrates has avoided all those finer distinctions which vary
the grammatical expression. His object manifestly is to con-
tinue as long as possible the same structure with the same case,
mood, and tense. The language of Isocrates, however, though
pervaded by a certain genial warmth of feeling, is quite free
from the influence of those violent emotions, which, when com-
bined with a shrewdness and cunning foreign to the candid dis-

all collisions of vowels at the end and beginning of words is avoided, a kind of
smoothness and finish is produced, such as was necessary for dramatic poetry and
panegyrical oratory. According to Dionysius, every hiatus is removed from the
Areopagiticus of Isocrates; to produce this, however, there must have been a
greater number of Attic contractions (crases) than we find in the present state of
the text. 1 Isocrates, περὶ ἀντιδόσεως, ὃ 46,

158 ISOCRATES.

position of Isocrates, produce the so-called figures of thought.
Accordingly, though we find in his speeches vehement questions,
exclamations, and climaxes, we have none of those stronger and
more irregular changes of the expression which such figures
beget. Isocrates also seeks a rhythmical structure of periods,
which seldom admits of any relation of the sentences calculated
to cause surprise by their inequality :’ he aims at an equability
of tone, or at least a tranquillity of feeling ; deep and varied
emotions would necessarily break the bonds of these regular
periods, and combine the scattered members in a new and bolder
organization. The ancients, therefore, agree that Isocrates was
entirely deficient in that vehemence of oratory which transfers
the feelings of the speaker to his audience, and which is called
δεινύτης in the narrower sense of the word; not so much
because the labour of polishing the style in its minor details
mars this vigour of speech (as Plutarch says of Isocrates : ‘ How
could he help fearing the charge of the phalanx, who was so
afraid of allowing one vowel to come in contact with another, or
of giving the tsocolon one syllable less than it ought to have’’),
but because this smoothness and evenness of style depended for
its very existence upon a tranquil train of thoughts, with no
perturbations of feeling to distract the even tenor of its way.

§ 7. In the well-founded conviction that his style was
peculiarly adapted to panegyrical eloquence, Isocrates rarely
employed it in forensic speeches; in these he approximates
more nearly to Lysias. However, he was not, like the orator
just mentioned, a professed speech-writer, or logographus. The

1 σχήματα τῆς διανοίας, Chap. XXXITI., ὃ 5.

2 As in the beautiful antithetic period at the beginning of the Panathenaicus,
the first part of which, with the μέν, is very artificially divided by the opposition
of negation and position, and the developement of the negation in particular by
the insertion of concessive sentences ; while the second part is broken off quite
short. If we express the scheme of the period thus :—

a aa,
I II
.--- - λον ᾿
᾿ α,α, ὃ, β, 9, ab
B consists only of the words viv δ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὁπωσοῦν τοὺς τοιούτους, In this Isocrates
may have imitated Demosthenes.
3 Plutarch, de gloria Athen., ο. VIII. Demetrius (de Elocut., § 247) remarks,
that antitheses and paromeea are not compatible with δεινότης.

STYLE OF ISOCRATES. 159

writers of speeches for the law-courts appeared to him, as com-
pared with his pursuits, to be only doll-makers as compared
with Phidias ;' he wrote comparatively few speeches for private
persons and for practical purposes. The collection which has
come down to us, and which comprises the majority of the
speeches recognized by the ancients as the genuine works of
Isocrates,’? contains fifteen admonitory, panegyrical, and scholastic
discourses, which were all designed for private perusal, and not
for popular assemblies or law-courts; and after these come six
forensic orations, which, no doubt, were written for actual
delivery in a court of justice.’ Isocrates also wrote, at a later
period, a theoretical treatise, or τέχνη, embodying the principles
which he had followed in his teaching, and which he had
improved and worked out by practice. This work was much
esteemed by ancient rhetoricians, and is often quoted.*

We have now brought the history of Attic prose, through a
series of statesmen, orators, and rhetoricians, from Pericles to
Isocrates: we have not yet arrived at its highest point; but
still this was a remarkable eminence. We now go back again
for a few years, in order to recognize, in the Athenian sage,
Socrates, a new beginning, not only of Attic training, but of
human cultivation in general, and to take under consideration
a series of remarkable appearances springing from that source.

1 περὶ ἀντιδόσεως, ὃ 2.

3 Cecilius acknowledged as genuine only 28 speeches. We have 21.

3 The speech about the exchange (περὶ ἀντιδόσεως) does not belong to this class.
Τὸ is not a forensic speech, but written when Isocrates was compelled by the offer
of an exchange to sustain ἃ most expensive liturgy,—the Trierarchy. In order to
correct the false impressions which were entertained with regard to his profession
and income, he wrote this speech as ‘a picture of his whole life, and of the plan
which he had pursued,’ § 7.

#The most important citation from it 1s that contained in a Scholium on
Hermogenes. See Spengel, Zuvaywyh τεχνῶν, p. 161.

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A

HISTORY OF THE LITERATURE

OF

ANCIENT GREECE;

FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS TO THE
TAKING OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE TURKS,

BEING

A CONTINUATION OF K. 0. MULLER’S WORK.

BY

JOHN WILLIAM DONALDSON, D.D.

CLASSICAL EXAMINER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ;
AND LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,

161

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE NEW BEGINNING OF ATTIC TRAINING—-FOUNDATION OF THE
SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

δ 1. Socrates; his literary importance. ὃ 2. Aristocratic tendency of Athenian
literature during the Peloponnesian war. § 3. How far Socrates was the
founder of dialectical reasoning and moral philosophy, § 4. Imperfect Socratic
schools; Eucleides and the Megarics. ὃ 5. Antisthenes and the Cynics. ὃ 6.
Aristippus and the Cyrenaics.

δ 1. LTHOUGH Socrates left no writings behind him, and

perhaps does not, strictly speaking, deserve a place
among the contributors to Greek literature, yet when we con-
sider that the history of a nation’s literature is the history also
of its intellectual developement, when we reflect how the intellect
of Greece was affected by an extension of the principles of So-
cratic philosophy, and especially when we remember that the
greatest literary genius that ever appeared in Hellas owed
much, if not most, of his mental training to his early inter-
course with Socrates, we cannot well proceed any farther in our
inquiries without bestowing a few pages on this great master,
and the minor schools of philosophy which claimed him as their
head.

Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, an Athenian sculptor,
and of Phenarete, a midwife, was born in Ol. 78, 1. 8.6.
468. He was brought up to his father’s profession, which he
practised with some success, though he did not by any meana
make it his principal occupation. A strong natural tendency
to philosophical speculation, fostered and encouraged by fre-
quent opportunities of intercourse with the eminent teachers of
the day, soon drew him away to more congenial pursuits, and
he became known, at an early period, as one devoted to the
acquirement of knowledge, and not only willing, but eager, to
converse with any one on those subjects which were con-
sidered most interesting to the original thinkers of his day.

Vou. 11. M

162 NEW BEGINNING OF ATTIC TRAINING.

Though strongly opposed to the tenets of Protagoras and Gor-
gias, he was regarded by many of his countrymen as one of the
same class of speculators: Aristophanes represents him as a
mischievous innovator in education; and, many years after-
wards, Aischines did not hesitate to speak of him as ‘ Socrates,
the Sophist.’" After having served his country as a gallant
soldier during the Peloponnesian war, and having survived the
frightful anarchy which succeeded that struggle between demo-
cracy and oligarchy, he was, shortly after the restoration of the
old constitution at Athens, brought to trial charged with im-
piety and with corrupting the minds of the rising generation ;
and, partly in consequence of his own proud and unbending de-
meanour at the trial, was sentenced to death, and condemned
to drink the cup of hemlock, in Ol. 95, 2. B.c. 399.

The circumstances which led to this catastrophe are, after
all, those which render Socrates most particularly an object of
interest in a literary point of view. We are not so much con-
cerned about establishing the excellence of his moral character,
or vindicating his claim to the first place in Greek philosophy,
as about clearly understanding and explaining his influence on
the literature and speculation of Greece, as they appeared after
his time.

§ 2. If we were asked what constituted the difference between
the Greek literature of the fifth century B.c. and that of the
preceding ages, we should be justified in answering, that litera-
ture was Hellenic before that time, but that during the fifth
century it became more and more exclusively Athenian.? Dur-
ing this period almost every branch of literature was cultivated
at Athens to a much greater extent than in all the rest of —
Greece: the drama was peculiarly her own; oratory was —
nowhere so powerful as in the Pnyx; the Attic prose style was —
a model for every Greek writer; philosophy, whether native or —
foreign, flourished only by the banks of the Ilissus; and,
in every sense, Athens was the Prytaneum of Greek wis-

1 Aschines, c. Timarch., p. 24: ἔπειθ᾽ ὑμεῖς, ὦ ᾿Αθηναῖοι, Σωκράτην τὸν co- —
φιστὴν ἀπεκτείνατε. The connexion of Atrometus with the party of Thrasybulus
(Aisch. Fals. Leg. p. 47), would partly account for his son’s unfavourable opinion of
one who shrank from joining the liberators.

2 See above, chapter XX. ὃ 2.

LITERARY IMPORTANCE OF SOCRATES. 163

dom,’ where the central fire blazed on its own altar, ministering,
however, light and warmth to all the lands of Greece. Yet,
though this great Attic literature had sprung up in the midst
of democracy, and would, no doubt, have been checked in its
free developement by any other form of government, it con-
tained within itself a principle of antagonism which soon placed
it in open opposition to that very political freedom in which it
took its rise. In order to understand what this principle was,
we must enter somewhat more deeply into the subject.

When literary exertions are occasioned by something in the
state of a country—its religion or its political constitution—as
when the worship of Bacchus gave rise to the drama, or, more
generally, the worship of Apollo necessitated some species or
other of choral lyric poetry, or when the democratic constitutions
of Greece created a school of oratory,—we may remark, that a
conviction of the importance of the object in view stifles all
literary vanity, and the poet is more apt to exult in the thought
that he is a minister of the god or an influential servant of the
state, than to take pride in the efforts of his genius. He is, in
fact, rather a prophet than an artist. As time, however, wears
on, the business of the literary man becomes more and more
professional.? The poet begins to feel conscious of his own
importance, and communicates this sentiment to others, till, at
last, the writer of the song or hymn is more in the thoughts of
his readers and hearers, than the deity in whose honour he has
composed the poem. We remark something of this even in
Pindar, for though he regards his superior endowments as na-
tural rather than acquired,’ he is not the less disposed to maintain
his professional superiority.“ But the tendency is more strikingly
shown in the cultivation of prose. From the first beginning of
artificial prose, in the time of the Sophists, down to its perfec-
tion by Isocrates, we have seen that its prevailing feature is

1 Plato, Protagoras, p. 337 C.: συνεληλυθότας τῆς Ἑλλάδος els αὐτὸ τὸ πρυτα-
νεῖον THs σοφίας.

2 Plato makes Protagoras say that all the δημιουργοί, or professional men, in the
Homeric sense of the term, poets, physicians, and teachers of music, were sophists,
who shrouded their one trade under the veil of these different accomplishments
(ταῖς τέχναις ταύταις παραπετάσμασιν ἐχρήσαντο. Protag. p. 316 E.).

5. Ol. Il. 86. 4 Ol. I, 115, 116.

M 2

164 NEW BEGINNING OF ATTIC TRAINING.

self-consciousness. The prose-writer commences with an ac-
knowledgment that he has a craft or art of his own—he is vain
of his skill—and, either by his oral lectures, or by drawing up
a τέχνη, or manual, professes to communicate to others the
adroitness on which he prides himself.' From this conscious-
ness of skill, or the power of doing what others cannot do so
well, another feeling immediately results, namely, a sense of
superiority in the exclusive possession of art. Hence the lite-
rary man feels himself professional, or belonging to a class, in
contradistinction to which all others are merely private in-
dividuals, laymen, or ἰδιῶται, as they were somewhat contemp-
tuously called; and at last literature, which was the type and
the product of free democratical Athens, becomes aristocratic
and exclusive, and paves the way to oligarchy, or, failing in this
result, shrinks from all participation in the duties of citizenship,
and consoles itself with the construction of imaginary and im-
practicable forms of government, in which the philosopher alone
is to guide and govern the state.

This tendency developed itself more especially during the
Peloponnesian war, which may be defined to have been the
great critical struggle between the democratic and aristocratic
parties in Greece. It was while Athens was outwardly con-
tending against the aristocracy of birth, that this aristocracy
of talent sprung up within her walls. The name by which the
oligarchical party all over Greece delighted to be called—
kaXoxayaSoi—properly implied education or accomplishment,
as well as birth.” But we remark, that the Spartan nobles
delighted more in being ἀγαθοί, ‘ well-born,’ than in their other
title of καλοί, ‘ well-educated’ Indeed, although they usurped
the whole name as one epithet of honour,’ the former part of
it was not unfrequently used by them with rather a contemp-
tuous application.*. With the literary aristocrats of Athens the

1 See above, chapter XXXII. § 3.

2 New Cratylus, §§ 322—325. 3 Thucyd. IV. 40.

4 Pind., Pyth. ΤΙ, 72: μαθὼν καλός τοι πίθων παρὰ παισίν, where see the com-
mentators, and for the proper reading compare the note on Sophocles, Antigone,
714, p. 192. It was perhaps with some such contemptuous reference that Thera-
menes, when drinking the hemlock, exclaimed, Κριτίᾳ τοῦτ᾽ ἔστω τῷ καλῷ (Xenoph.,
Hellen. IT. 3, ὃ 56).

a a {ὰ.ὕ..

TENDENCY OF ATHENIAN LITERATURE. 165

case was quite otherwise. Their principal renown was to
be the pre-eminently καλοὶ, or ‘ accomplished? and they
cared little or nothing for the distinctions of birth. They
felt that they constituted, as, in fact, they did, a sort of
middle class, whose interests were identical neither with
those of the old nobles nor with those of the democracy.
It would be difficult to name any very prominent literary
man of this sera, with the single exception of Aristophanes,
who did not belong to the literary aristocrats. Euripides,
whose connexion with Socrates has long been sufficiently
understood, expressly declares, that of the three classes in the
state the middle one saves the city ;" Sophocles was one of the
πρόβουλοι, or commissioners, who were selected as agents in
the middle-class movement which preceded the oligarchy at
Athens ;* and Thucydides does not hesitate to say, that, in his
opinion, this movement, which is generally known as the
government of the Five-thousand, was the first good constitu-
tion which the Athenians had enjoyed in his time.‘ The poli-
tical personage who was at the head of this movement in favour
of the middle classes was Theramenes, and all the hopes of those
who conceived it possible to have a government of the καλοὶ, or
educated men, without falling into oligarchy, rested upon this
versatile and not very honest statesman. Critias, on the other
hand, was for upholding the principles of the old oligarchies,
and cared as little for the claims and interests of the middle
classes as he did for those of the great mass of his fellow-
citizens. This opposition between the parties of Critias and
Theramenes—between the old-fashioned oligarchy and the aris-
tocracy of talent—appears to us to solve the whole problem as
far as Socrates and his literary affinities are concerned. That
Socrates disapproved of the views of Critias,° and would not
contribute to carry out his nefarious measures for the aggran-
dizement of his party,° is established by the most express testi-

1 That is to say, they were neither τὸ φαῦλον, ‘the illiterate,’ nor τὸ πάνυ dxpiBes,
‘the minute philosophers’ (Thucyd. VI. 18). For φαῦλος as an epithet of the
common people, see Eurip., Bacche 431 ; Aischin., ὁ. Ctesiph. p. 65, 1.

2 Suppl. 247: τριῶν δὲ μοιρῶν ἡ ν μέσῳ σώζει πόλιν.

8 Thucyd. VIII. τ. Aristot., Rhetor. III. 18, ὃ 6.

4 Thucyd. VIII. 97. 5 Xenophon, Mem. I. 2, ὃ 32.

6 Plato, Apologia Soer. p. 32, ¢.

166 NEW BEGINNING OF ATTIC TRAINING.

mony. At the same time, he remained at Athens during the
whole period of the anarchy, and never joined the patriots of
Phyle. The inference from this is plain: he agreed with many
and most of the principles of the educated party—the καλοί----
and, upon the whole, preferred an aristocracy of talent and
knowledge to the old constitution of his country ; and, though
he made a courageous effort to save the head of his party,
Theramenes, from the vengeance of his great rival,’ and would,
no doubt, have contributed what he could to give a blow to the
schemes of Critias and Charmides, he preferred his own Gi-
rondist theories to the revived democracy which succeeded
the downfal of the oligarchs ; and the knowledge of this, coupled
with the belief, however erroneous, that he was still a mis-
chievous agent of the middle-class party, not unnaturally
induced Anytus, one of the leaders of the party of Thrasybulus,
to indict him before the popular tribunal, and led the Athenians
to involve themselves in the crime and disgrace of persecuting
intolerance.”

§ 3. These remarks on the political tendencies of the literary
party at Athens, in which Socrates occupied such an influential
and prominent position, were necessary to a right understanding
of the new direction given to literature by Socrates and his
associates. As self-consciousness was the distinguishing feature
of this party, so we see that egoism, in forms more or less pro-
nounced, is the strongest mark of the post-Socratic era of
literature and philosophy. In philosophy this has long been
recognized. It is well known that, as the speculations of the
older philosophers, especially those of the Ionic school, were for
the most part confined to physics, and therefore treated only of
the outer world, so the business of Socrates and his followers
was chiefly with man himself, considered as a thinking subject ;
in other words, they were all, in some form or other, ethical
philosophers.’ The celebrated precept inscribed on the temple

1 Diodor, Sic. XIV. c. 5: Σωκράτης δὲ ὁ φιλόσοφος καὶ δύο τῶν οἰκείων προσδρα-
μόντες ἐνεχείρουν κωλύειν τοὺς ὑπηρέτας, ὁ δε Θηραμένης K.T.r.

2 Mr. Maurice thinks that the Athenians were unable to tolerate Socrates,
because he did not put forth specific opinions, but was merely a seeker of truth
(Ancient Philosophy, p. 119). This view seems to us to be contradicted by the
terms of the indictment, and by the antecedents of the prosecutors,

3 See Eusebius, Prep. Evang. pp. 25, 26, 853.

METHOD OF SOCRATES. 167

at Delphi,— Know thyself’ (γνῶθι ccavrov),—by which So-
crates understood that sort of self-scrutiny, which leads to a
conviction of our practical deficiencies,—was constantly on his
lips, and served not only to remind him of his own duty as he
conceived it, but also furnished him with a text to justify his
cross-examination of others. Plato makes him excuse himself
for not engaging in literary studies, by saying :* ‘I cannot as
yet obey the Delphic inscription, which bids me know myself ;
and it seems to me absurd for any one to inquire into that
which does not concern him while he is still ignorant of this.’
In applying this precept to others as well as to himself, Socrates
not only repressed any self-satisfaction on his own part, but
also exposed and rebuked the self-conceit of others. And in
making the inquiry after self-knowledge a test of moral progress
or political competency, Socrates generally started from the
admitted difference between the acquaintance with a particular
subject possessed by the professional man as distinguished from
those who had not specially studied it. He urged that, while
every artist and-artizan enjoyed the professional self-conscious-
ness to which we have already referred, while he could tell how
he came by his knowledge, while he felt himself safe and strong
in the exercise of it, and could, if necessary, teach it to another,
the case was strikingly different in regard to those far more im-
portant principles by which men are guided in their social
and political conduct,—the principles, in fact, of ethical philo-
sophy in all its applications; here every one professed to be as
wise as every one else; all were ready to undertake the most
important duties; and yet no one could give an account of
his supposed qualifications ; could say how he acquired them,
or how he would communicate them to others.’ It was by
means of conversation, by a searching process of question and
answer, amounting, in many cases, to a skilful cross-examination,
that Socrates endeavoured to lead his associates, and all whom

1 Xenophon, Mem. IV. 2, §§ 24—26. ‘Self knowledge,’ he says, ‘consists in a
knowledge of our capacities, with regard to the usefulness of man as such ;’ 6 ἑαυτὸν
ἐπισκεψάμενος ὁποῖος ἐστι πρὸς τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην χρείαν, ἔγνωκε τὴν ἑαυτοῦ δύναμιν.

2 Plato, Phedr. p. 229 E. σ

3 See Plato, Sympos. p. 221 E. Protagoras, Ὁ. 319, 320. Gorgias, p. 491 A, &e.
This chapter was written and partly printed in 1842. Mr. Grote has since given

168 FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

he had an opportunity of interrogating, to a consciousness of
their own ignorance, and thus to stir up in their minds an
anxiety to obtain more exact views. By his peculiar skill in
conducting this system of questioning, he raised it to the rank
of a scientific process, and ‘ dialectics’ (διαλεκτική) or ‘ talk’
became a name for the method of reasoning and the science of
logic. This method of sifting the truth had been practised
before him by some of the Eleatic school, especially by ‘the
asking and answering Zeno,’ as he was called.’ But it assumed,
under the skilful management of Socrates, a more directly
practical application, and a more systematic form; and the
statement that there were ten distinct schools of Socratic phi-
losophers’ shows, at all events, how important was the influence
of Socrates on the thinkers of his generation, while the ten-
dency exhibited by Plato and others to frame schemes for an
Utopian polity, in which the wise and good alone would exercise
authority, proves that the self-consciousness of superior or pro-
fessional knowledge was still operating on the civic character
as it did in the latter years of the Peloponnesian war.

As far as Socrates was himself concerned, it may be said
briefly, that he first awakened the idea of science, and first
treated moral philosophy according to scientific principles.
With regard to the combination of his scientific with his moral
principles, it may be stated that his leading idea was a conviction
of the unity of virtue and a consequent belief that it was teach-
able as a matter of science; so that with him the scientific and
the moral run into one another. Thus he held that a true
knowledge of what is morally right leads of necessity to corre-
sponding conduct, since no one wilfully departs from that which

due prominence to the characteristics of Socrates, which are mentioned in the text.
He says (vol. VIII. p. 597), ‘there was no topic on which Sokratés more frequently
insisted than the contrast between the state of men’s knowledge on the general
topics of men and society, and that which artists or professional men possessed in
their respective special crafts. So perpetually did he reproduce this comparison,
that his enemies accused him of wearing it threadbare.’

1 Aristotle, Sophist. Hlench. c. X. ὃ 2.

2 Diog. Laért., II. § 47, p. 119, Casaubon : τῶν δὲ διαδεξαμένων αὐτὸν τῶν λεγομένων
ZwparixGr, οἱ κορυφαιότατοι μὲν Πλάτων, Revopdr, ᾿Αντισθένης" τῶν δὲ φερομένων
δέκα οἱ διασημότατοι τέσσαρες, Αἰσχίνης, Φαίδων, Εὐκλείδης, Ἀρίστιππος. The Pheedo,
here mentioned, was the founder of the Eretrian school, which was virtually sub-
ordinated to the Megarics by its second founder Menedemus. Phedo is best known
by the dialogue of Plato which bears his name.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 169

he knows to be good. Accordingly the moral philosophy of
Socrates was a deduction from his theory of consciousness, and
_ his exposure of ignorance assumed the form of a moral rebuke.
“This waking of the idea of science,’ says Schleiermacher,’ ‘ and
its earliest manifestations, must have been, in the first instance,
what constituted the philosophical basis in Socrates; and for
this reason he is justly regarded as the founder of that later
Greek philosophy, which in its whole essential form, together
with its several variations, was determined by that idea. For
by what other means could he have been enabled to declare
that which others believed themselves to know to be no know-
ledge, than by a more correct conception of knowledge, and by
a more correct method founded upon that conception? And
everywhere, when he is explaining the nature of non-science
(ἀνεπιστημοσύνη), one sees that he sets out from two tests: one,
that science is the same in all true thoughts, and consequently
must manifest its peculiar form in every such thought: the
other, that all science must form one whole. For his proofs
always hinge on this assumption: that it is impossible to start
from one true thought, and to be entangled in a contradiction
with any other, and also that knowledge derived from any one
point, and obtained by correct combination, cannot contradict
that which has been deduced in like manner from any other
point ; and while he exposed such contradictions in the current
conceptions of mankind, he strove to rouse those leading ideas
in all who were capable of understanding or even divining his
meaning.’ The irony of Socrates has been well described by
the same‘writer, as the coexistence in him of the idea of science
with the want of clear and complete views on any object of
science—in a word, as the knowledge of his ignorance. ‘ It
is clear” says an English scholar,’ ‘ that Socrates possessed,
consciously to himself, an idea of scientific method, and that his
repeated asseveration, that he knew nothing, was grounded on
the comparison of his own attainments with that idea’ The
procedure, which Socrates derived from this self-consciousness,

1 Translated by Dr. Thirlwall in the Philological Museum, II. 549. We have
quoted this passage and that which follows (from Schleiermacher’s Philosoph.
Werke, 111. 4. 9), in the Penny Cyclopedia, 5. v. ‘ Socrates.’

2 Professor Thompson, note on Butler’s Lectwres on Ancient Philosophy, vol. I.
Ρ. 379.

170 FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

was a system of induction, by which he reduced under some
one idea, a multitude of separate particulars combined with a
system of definitions, by which he divided the genus into its
species; and this is the procedure which is described in the
Phedrus of Plato." The subject matter of this procedure was
not physical but moral science, considered with special reference
to politics. Both the method of Socrates and this application
of it have been fully recognized by Aristotle. With regard to
the latter he remarks:? ‘in the time of Socrates, moral and
political philosophy was extended, and physical speculation
ceased, and philosophers turned their attention to the virtue
which was useful to individuals and communities.’ And in
another passage he states both the method and the object of
the Socratic dialectics: ‘ as Socrates,’* he says, ‘ busied himself
about the moral virtues, and endeavoured first of all to give
general definitions of these,—for Democritus and Pythagoras
attempted only a few definitions—he consistently investigated
the guid est (ro ri ἐστιν), the general idea. For he sought to
draw logical conclusions (συλλογίζεσθαι) ; but the general idea
is the basis of logical reasoning. At that time the faculty of
dialectic did not yet exist, so that he should have been able to
investigate opposites independently of the general idea, and so
to see whether the science of opposites is identical. There
are two things which one may justly attribute to Socrates,—in-
duction and general definitions, both of which belong to the
first principles of science.’* We cannot then give a briefer, and
at the same time more correct account of what Socrates did
for the philosophic literature of Greece, than by saying that he
founded a system of dialectical reasoning resting on real defini-

1 Prof. Thompson says, u.s. ; ‘ Induction was the bridge by which Socrates led
his hearers from the common notion to the right conception implied in a term, pro-
ceeding by the rejection and exclusion of that which was irrelevant or proper to
the individual, or the subordinate species, per rejectiones et exclusiones debitas
(Bacon, Nov. Org. I. 105). The two counter-processes of the dialectician are dis-
cussed with great elegance in the Phedrus, 265 D., fol. (1.) Induction, or the
gathering under one form the multitude of scattered partionlars, (2.) Division, or
the dissection of the general into its subordinate species, κατ᾽ ἄρθρα ἣ πέφυκεν, by
a natural not an arbitrary classification.’

2 De Part. Anim. I. 1, 44: ἐπὶ Σωκράτους τοῦτο μὲν ηὐξηθη, τὸ δὲ ζητεῖν τὰ wept
φύσεως ἔληξε, πρὸς δὲ τὴν χρήσιμον ἀρετὴν καὶ τὴν πολιτικὴν ἀπέκλιναν οἱ φιλοσοφοῦντες.

3 Metaphys. M. (XIII.) 4, p. 1078 b. 17.

4 ἐκεῖνος δὲ εὐλόγως ἐζήτει τὸ τί ἐστιν. συλλογίζεσθαι yap ἐζήτει, ἀρχὴ δὲ τῶν

IMPERFECT SOCRATIC SCHOOLS. 171

tions, and that he applied this practical logic to a common-sense
estimate of the duties of man, both as a moral being and as a
member of a community; so that while on the one hand he
gave intensity to the feeling of professional self-consciousness,
on the other hand he induced men to exact from themselves
and their associates a higher standard of qualification, and to
seek the good government of the state as well as the morality
of the individual, in an increase of mental discipline and useful
knowledge. His especial position as a speculative teacher is
best indicated by the statement to which we have already
referred, that no less than ten schools of philosophers claimed
him as their head. It is true that the majority of these very
imperfectly represented his method and its applications. But
by his influence on Plato, and through him, on Aristotle, he
has constituted himself the founder of the philosophy which is
still recognised in the civilized world.

Reserving for special discussion the works of Xenophon,
Plato, and Aristotle, which are the most striking literary repre-
sentatives of Socrates and his teaching, in their effects on his
own and the succeeding generation, we must here consider those
imperfect Socratic schools, which either exaggerated the views
of Socrates in regard to the relations of science and virtue, or
distorted his teaching by subordinating, on contradictory prin-
ciples, the speculative truth to the moral obligation. As, on the
one hand, Socrates had insisted that virtue was dependent on
the highest kind of speculative knowledge, one of the ablest of
his disciples, Eucleides of Megara, who had previously adopted

συλλογισμῶν τὸ τί ἐστιν, διαλεκτικὴ γὰρ ἰσχὺς οὔπω Tor’ ἣν, ὥστε δύνασθαι καὶ χωρὶς
τοῦ τί ἐστι τἀναντία ἐπισκοπεῖν, καὶ τῶν ἐναντίων εἰ ἡ αὐτὴ ἐπιστήμη. δύο γὰρ ἐστιν ἅ
τις ἂν ἀποδοίη Σωκράτει δικαίως, τούς 7 ἐπακτικοὺς λόγους καὶ τὸ ὁρίζεσθαι καθόλου.
ταῦτα γὰρ ἐστιν ἄμφω περὶ ἀρχὴν ἐπιστήμης. In this important passage εὐλόγως
means consistently, or in strict accordance with the definition. Thusin the Metaph.
A. I. p. 989, a. 2: καὶ περὶ τῆς τῶν κινουμένων αἰτίας, πότερον ἕν ἢ δύο θετέον, οὔτ᾽
ὀρθῶς οὔτε εὐλόγως οἰητέον εἰρῆσθαι παντελῶς. Bonitz explains the adverb: ‘de
moventium causarum numero, utrum una statuenda esset an due, Empedoclem
disputasse ait nec recte (οὔτ᾽ ὀρθῶς), siquidem unum debere esse τὸ κινοῦν ἀκίνητον
Aristoteles persuasum habet, nec sibimet ipsi constantem (οὔτ᾽ εὐλόγως), quoniam
utriusque principii munera non potest ita, uti distinxit, servare distincta.’ The
consistency of Socrates depended on his sticking to his definition of terms, as
Xenophon tells us very plainly; Mem. 1V.6,§ 1: ὧν ἕνεκα σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσι,
τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν ὄντων οὐδέποτ᾽ ἔληγε. Arrian. Epictet. I. 17, 12: ἤρχετο ἀπὸ
τῆς τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπισκέψεως τί σημαίνει ἕκαστον. This is the λόγον διδόναι, which
Simmias, in the Phedo, p. 763, is made to attribute exclusively to Socrates.

172 FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

the teaching of the Eleatic school, exaggerated this proposition,
and substituted for the practical ethics of Socrates a system of
logical refinements, involving a series of perplexities not unlike
those which the schoolmen of the middle ages substituted for
the simple lessons of Christian theology. As, on the other
hand, Socrates had maintained that there was a necessary con-
nexion between virtue and happiness, two of his hearers made
this equation the basis of two opposite systems of morality ; for
while Antisthenes asserted that virtue was happiness, Aristippus
maintained that happiness was virtue; and while the former
compelled the mind of man to surrender all its inclinations, the
latter called upon nature to submit to the cravings of human
appetite. The speculations of the Megaric school, duly sifted
and criticised, paved the way for the idealism of Plato; and
the Cynics, who claim Antisthenes for their founder, and the
Cyrenaics, who took their rise with Aristippus, were represented
with certain modifications by the Stoics and Epicureans re-
spectively, the former being also the inheritors of the Megaric
teaching of Stilpo.

§ 4. Evciemes, of Megara, or, as Diogenes tells us some-
what doubtingly, of Gela, in Sicily, was one of the most devoted
associates of Socrates, and not only encountered some danger ~
in order to enjoy the advantage of his teaching,’ but was among
those who attended him in his last moments.’ When the
tragedy was accomplished, he opened his house at Megara as an
asylum for those of his fellow-students* who found Athens no ἡ
longer a safe or pleasant abode, and, among others, entertained
Plato, who was destined to be the most distinguished ornament
of the school. Before the period of his connexion with Socrates,
Eucleides had made himself acquainted with the doctrines of
the Eleatics ; and the peculiarities of his system, which regarded
speculative science the summum bonum or moral end of man,
must be attributed to the fact, that, under the influence of his —
previous associations, he endeavoured to combine the Parme-
nidean with the Socratic theory, and eagerly pursued the dia-
lectics, while he neglected the practical ethics of his last teacher.
Diogenes tells us that he wrote six dialogues, of which he gives

1 Aulus Gellius, VN. A. VI. το. 2 Plat. Phedo p. 59 B.
8. Diog. Laert. II. 108.

‘

EUCLEIDES. 173

us the titles ;' but not a fragment of his works has been pre-
served. His views, however, are criticized in the Sophistes,
Politicus, Parmenides, and Phiiebus, of Plato, and the doc-
trines of his school are often referred to by ancient writers.
Starting as an Eleatic philosopher, from the conception of
unity, Eucleides maintained that it was ‘the good,’ though he
designated it by different names,—sometimes calling it ‘ pru-
dence,’ at another time ‘ God,’ at another time ‘ intellect,’ and
so forth? This alone had being, and it was unalterable.’ Its
opposite, therefore, or evil, was non-existent.* This optimism
was, of course, purely metaphysical, and was not regarded in
its practical result. Even the dialectics of Eucleides were
logically unpractical. He rejected all reasoning by analogy, all
comparisons, all formal demonstrations ; and ‘in arguing syl-
logistically, for he seems to have invented the syllogism, he
used to admit the premises and combat the conclusion.’
Whatever may have been the value of his teaching as a dis-
cipline of the intellect, it was incapable of producing any im-
portant results, and appeared as nothing but an endless logo-
machy, fruitful only in ingenious quibbles. These idle sophistries
assumed a worse form under Euvsutipes, the successor of Eu-
cleides, who flourished about 340 B.c., and who is known as the
inventor of the seven false or captious syllogisms so celebrated
in the history of logic, namely, the ψευδόμενος or ‘liar,’ the
ἐγκεκαλυμμένος or ‘veiled,’ the κερατίνης or ‘horned, the
nAéxrpa or ‘unknown friend, the φαλακρὸς or ‘bald, the
swpirne or ‘heap,’ and the διαλανθάνων or ‘hidden.’®> Much

1 TI. $108. They were called Λαμπρίας, Αἰσχίνης, Φοίνιξ, Kpirwv, ᾿Αλκιβιάδης,
Ἐρωτικός.

2 Diog. Laért. IT. 108: ἕν τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἀπεφαίνετο πολλοῖς ὀνόμασι καλούμενον" ὅτε
μὲν γὰρ φρόνησιν, ὅτε δὲ θεὸν, καὶ ἄλλοτε νοῦν καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

8 Cic, Acad. Qu. II. 42: ‘id bonum solum esse [Megarici] dicebant, quod esset
unum et idem semper.’

4 Diog. Laért. u.s.: τὰ δὲ ἀντικείμενα τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀνήρει, μὴ εἶναι φάσκων.

5 χα, ibid. : ταῖς ἀποδείξεσιν ἐνίστατο οὐ κατὰ λήμματα ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ ἐπιφοράν. Profes-
sor Thompson remarks (Butler’s Lectwres, I. p. 402): ‘if, as Deycks supposes,
these terms were invented by Eucleides, to him will belong the honour of having
discovered the form of the syllogism, λήμματα being equivalent to the προτάσεις,
ἐπιφορὰ to the συμπέρασμα of Aristotle.’

6 These seven sophisms may easily be reduced to four. The ‘veiled,’ the ‘un-
known friend’ and the ‘hidden’ are all the same, namely, they are dependent on
the quibble that Admetus or Electra would not know Alcestis or Orestes, if they

174 FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

the same was the procedure of the later Megarics, Droporus
Cronus and Srripro, who flourished about 300 B.c., the former
of whom denied motion, and the latter maintained that only
identical propositions were true. Such a school well deserved
to be called eristic or contentious. The Megarics were, in
fact, as Schleiermacher has remarked,’ the overseers and critics
of the formal proceedings of others, and they did this in the
true Socratic spirit, which they had apprehended in its most
positive form. Their imperfections consisted in their neglect of
real knowledge ; but it may be said that wherever the Cynics
were negative as Socratic philosophers, the Megarics were posi-
tive, and so the two schools at last united in that of the
Stoics, for Stilpo, who lived as a genuine Cynic of the higher
kind, was a pupil of Crates, and the teacher of Zeno.

§ 5. The Cynics, who were thus the counterpart and supple-
ment of the Megarics, derived their doctrine and principles from
ANTISTHENES, who has been well described? as a caricature of
his teacher Socrates. Originally a scholar of Gorgias, Anti-
sthenes devoted himself to Socrates, and was, like Eucleides, one
of those who attended him in his last moments.’ Two decla-
mations of doubtful authenticity, the Ajax and Ulysses, are still
preserved as specimens of his-rhetorical skill. But his philo-
sophical writings, which were voluminous, and distinguished by
various excellencies of style and matter, are entirely lost, with
the exception of a few fragments.’ These works, as we learn

were veiled or otherwise concealed, so that one might be said to know and not to
know the same person at the same time. This fallacy is as old as Eucleides, for
Plato refers to it in his Theetetus, p. 165 B.: λέγω δὴ τὸ δεινότατον ἐρώτημα, dpa
οἷόν τε τὸν αὐτὸν εἰδότα τι τοῦτο ὃ olde μὴ εἰδέναι. The ‘bald’ and the ‘heap’ are
only the reversed forms of the same sophism ; they argued on the admission that the
loss of a hair does not constitute baldness, or the addition of a grain make a heap.
The ‘horned’ argues that you have what you have not lost—horns for instance.
And the ‘liar’ maintains that if you say you lie when you speak the truth, you both
lie and speak the truth at the same time (Cic. Acad. II. 29., Aristotle, Soph. El.
XXV. 3). This fallacy, which depends on a confusion in the meaning of the
predicate, furnished Chrysippus with the theme for six volumes of commentary,
and was probably developed by Eubulides in his attack on the μεσότης of Aristotle’s
ethics, 1 Werke zur Philosophie, II. τ. p. οὔ.

2 By Schleiermacher, u.s. Ὁ. 91.

3 Xen. Mem. 111, 11, 17, 11. 5. Sympos. II. το, III. 7, 1V. 34. Plat. Phedo,
p. 59, B. 1

4 Westermann, Gesch. d. Gr. Beredtsamkeit 2 33, note 2.

5 Winckelmann, Antisthenis Fragmenta, Turici 1842.

ANTISTHENES AND THE CYNICS. 175

from Diogenes, were collected in ten books, and consisted chiefly
of dialogues.’ Some of these were polemical criticisms, if they
did not amount to personal and libellous attacks. Thus, we
read of two dialogues called Cyrus, in the second of which
he inveighed against Alcibiades, of his Politicus, in which he
lampooned all the statesmen of Athens, of his Archelaus, in
which he criticized Gorgias, of his Aspasia, in which he ca-
lumniated the sons of Pericles, and of his Satho, in which Plato
was scurrilously assailed.2 With the latter he was in constant
antagonism, and we find traces of this in the Platonic dialogues.
There can be no doubt that Antisthenes is aimed at in well-
known passages of the Sophistes and Philebus.* Cicero informs
us that, in his book called ὁ φυσικός, Antisthenes maintained
the important proposition that, though there were many gods in
the popular polytheism, there was only one real deity.* Although
Theopompus ventured to insinuate that Plato was indebted to
Antisthenes for many of his thoughts,’ it seems that the latter
was remarkable rather for his wit and acuteness than for the
elevation of his sentiments ;° and his general character would
lead us to expect sarcastic humour rather than refined elegance
in his writings. The same affectation which induced him to
substitute ascetic extravagances for the natural simplicity and

1 Diog. Laért. VI. 15.

2 Athen. V., p. 220, C.D. Satho was a vulgar substitute for Plato’s own

name: καὶ Πλάτωνα δὲ μετονομάσας Σάθωνα ἀσυρῶς καὶ φορτικῶς τὸν ταύτην ἔχοντα
τὴν ἐπιγραφὴν ἐξέδωκε κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ.
- 8 Soph. 251 B., 258 E., 259 D. Phileb. 45. c. Aristot. Ethica Nicom. X. 1.
Professor Thompson (in a paper read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society in
Noy. 1857) has rendered it probable that of the two parties in the gigantomachy
(Soph. p. 246 A.) the gods, represent the Megarics, who, as idealists, are called
ἡμερώτεροι, ‘more civilized’ or ‘more humane’ than their materialistic opponents,
whereas the giants denote the school of Antisthenes, who, says Plato, think
nothing real but that which they can take hold of with both their hands (Soph.
247 ©.), and whom he elsewhere (Thectet. 155 E.) terms ‘hard,’ ‘stubborn,’ ‘quite
illiterate’ (σκληροί, ἀντίτυποι, μάλ᾽ ed ἄμουσοι), the second of these epithets referring
(as Mr. Thompson holds with Winckelmann) to the name as well as the character
of Antisthenes, and the last being quite justified by the language of Aristotle,
Metaphys. vu. 3. 7: οἱΑντισθένειοι καὶ of οὕτως ἀπαίδευτοι.

4 Cic. De Nat. Deor. I. 13,32: ‘ Antisthenes, in eo libro qui physicus inscribitur,
populares deos multos, naturalem unum esse dicens, tollit vim et naturam deorum.’
Cf. Clem. Al. Strom. V. p. 601.

> Athen. XI., p. 508 p. The same claim is made on behalf of Aristippus and
Bryson.

® Cic. ad Att, XII. 38: ‘homo acutus magis quam eruditus.’

176 FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

contempt for luxury, which were so conspicuous in Socrates,
must have appeared in his literary compositions, and we may be
sure that they were not deficient in the caustic bitterness which
is attributed to his conversation.’ His personal habits were
eminently offensive. So far was he from attracting a crowd of
admirers, that he drove away all his pupils except Diogenes, who
was a man of similar stamp. He always appeared in the most
beggarly clothing, with the staff and wallet of mendicancy ; and
this ostentation of self-denial once drew from Socrates the ex-
clamation that he saw the vanity of Antisthenes through the
holes in his garments.? It has been supposed that the appel-
lation of ‘the dog, or the ‘ cynic,’ which is especially bestowed
on Diogenes,’ and which furnishes a designation for the school
founded by Antisthenes, was derived from the snarling temper
and shameless effrontery of these philosophers. In all proba-
bility, this name, which was found to be so appropriate, was
suggested in the first instance by that of the Gymnasium of
Cynosarges at Athens, where Antisthenes taught, close by the
temple of his favourite deity Hercules. The philosophy of the
Cynics, if it deserves to be called so, was a resolute maintenance
of the principle that nothing was good but virtue. And by
virtue they understood only firmness, and the abnegation of all
natural desires. They even went so far as to identify pain with
virtue, and to make physical discomfort a condition of moral
felicity. Even infamy and despair might be regarded as

1 The following are some of his sarcastic witticisms as recorded by Diogenes: πρὸς τὸ
Ποντικὸν μειράκιον, μέλλον φοιτᾶν αὐτῷ καὶ πυθόμενον τίνων αὐτῷ det, φησὶ βιβλιαρίου
καιν οὔ (καὶ vod), καὶ γραφείου καιν οὔ (καὶ vod), καὶ πινακιδίου κα ιν ο Ὁ (καὶ νοῦ),
τὸν νοῦν παρεμφαίνων.---πρὸς τὸν ἐρωτώμενον ποδαπὴν γήμῃ, ἔφη, ἂν μὲν καλὴν
ἕξεις κοιν ἦν, ἂν δὲ αἰσχρὰν ἕξεις ποιν ἡ .---κρεῖττον ἔλεγεν ἐν ταῖς χρείαις εἰς
κόρακας ἢ εἰς κόλακας ἐμπεσεῖν" οἱ μεν yap νεκρόυς, οἱ δὲ ζῶντας ἐσθίουσιν.
Aristophanes, by the way, has punned upon these last words, Vesp. 43—45.

2 Diog. Laert. VI. 8, p. 370, Casaubon: στρέψαντος αὐτοῦ τὸ διερρωγὸς τοῦ τρίβωνος
els τὸ προφανές, Σωκράτης ἰδών φησιν, “ὁρῶ σου διὰ τοῦ τρίβωνος τὴν φιλοδοξίαν.᾽

3 6, σ. Aristot. Rhet. III. 10, § 7.

4 The Κυνόσαργες was a temple and gymnasium of Hercules, east of the city, and
before the gate Diomea, It was designed for the use of illegitimate or base-born
Athenians and foreigners (Dem, ¢. Aristocr. 692. 18). Hercules was the favourite
godof Antisthenes, not only because he was himself, like that divinity, half-god, of good
extraction by the father’s side only, his mother having been a Thracian or a Phry-
gian, but also because Hercules was the representative of a laborious life. The
Cynosarges was so called from the oracle about ἡ κύων ἡ λευκή (Pausan. I. 19, 2 3).

ANTISTHENES. 1

blessings,’ and madness was better than vicious pleasure? The
virtue, which they regarded as the summum bonum, was, according
to the Socratic principle, capable of being taught.’ But it was
only Antisthenes, the founder of the school, and Zeno, who
received instruction from Crates the disciple of Diogenes, that
paid any attention to science as such. Even in the hands of Anti-
sthenes science was really a denial of scientific principles.
According to Aristotle,s he said ‘that it was impossible to
define the substance of a thing (for that the definition was but
a long description), but that you may teach what kind of a thing
it is; for example, you cannot say what silver is, but you may
say that it is like tin.’ According to the same authority,’ he
insisted upon an identity of expression in speaking of the same
subjects, so that he denied the possibility of contradiction, and
almost of falsehood. It was therefore in a very different sense
from Socrates that Antisthenes maintained that all instruction
depended on an examination of words.’ For while Socrates
insisted upon scientific definition, Antisthenes intended to insist
only upon a fixed use of conventional terms. On the whole it
may be said with truth, that the philosophy of the Cynics was
a travesty and misrepresentation of that of Socrates, just as its
founder was a caricature of his great teacher. And if Socrates
may be called a Girondist, it is equally clear that Antisthenes
and Diogenes were Sansculottes. The latter indeed was, either
on his own account or that of his family,’ an outcast from his
native city of Sinope; his asceticism was, in all probability,
a refuge for his forfeited respectability and civic useful-

1 Diog. VI. 11, p. 371: τὴν δὲ ἀδοξίαν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἴσον τῷ πόνῳ.

2 id. VI. 3: μανείην μᾶλλον ἢ ἡσθείην, 8: πρὸς τὸν ἐπαινοῦντα τρυφήν, ἐχθρῶν
παῖδες, ἔφη, τρυφήσειαν.

8 id. 10, p. 371: διδακτὴν ἀπεδείκνυε τὴν ἀρετήν.

4 Metaphys. VIII. 3. p. 1043, b. 24: ὥστε ἡ ἀπορία ἣν οἱ ᾿Αντισθένειοι καὶ οἱ
. οὕτως ἀπαίδευτοι ἠπόρουν ἔχει τινὰ καιρόν, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιτὸ τί ἔστιν ὁρίσασθαι (τὸν
yap ὅρον λόγον εἶναι μακρόν), ἀλλὰ ποῖόν τι ἐστιν ἐνδέχεται καὶ διδάξαι, ὥσπερ
ἄργυρον τί μέν ἐστιν, οὔ, ὅτι δὲ οἷον καττίτερος.

5 Metaphys. V. 29, p. 1024, b. 31: ὁ δὲ ψευδὴς λόγος οὐθενός ἐστιν ἁπλῶς λόγος" διὸ
᾿Αντισθένης Beto εὐήθως μηθὲν ἀξιῶν λέγεσθαι πλὴν τὸ οἰκείῳ λόγῳ ἕν ἐφ᾽ ἑνός" ἐξ ὧν
συνέβαινε μὴ εἶναι ἀντιλέγειν, σχεδὸν δὲ μηδὲ ψεύδεσθαι.

6 Arrian, Dissert. Epictetit, I. 17.12: ᾿Αντισθένης δ᾽ οὐ λέγει; καὶ τίς ἐστιν ὁ
γεγραφὼς ὅτι ἀρχὴ παιδεύσεως ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπίσκεψις ;

7? Diog. Laért. VI. 20, p. 377.

Vox, II. N

178 FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

ness; and the socialism, which he openly preached, seemed to be
inspired by the recklessness of a man who had no character to lose.

§ 6. The opposite school of the Cyrenaics had at least the
merit of eschewing all hypocrisy, and although the undisguised
pursuit of selfish gratification is utterly repugnant to our higher
moral sense, it is at least more natural and more honest than
the affected austerity, which the Cynics used as a cloak for their
malignity, or as an excuse for their shamelessness.' The
peculiar character of Aristippus, the founder of this school,
seems to have impressed itself on his followers. He was, in
modern language, a selfish man of the world, who was willing to
barter his real independence, and to let out his social and in-
tellectual qualities, in order to obtain the largest possible amount
of present enjoyment, and to escape as far as possible the ordinary
troubles and annoyances of life. He believed, with all this, that
he had made himself superior to the outer world, and was in-
dependent of external circumstances.? ‘I possess, but am not
possessed by things,’* was the maxim by which he expressed his
indifferentism in regard to all things which he could not bring
under his control. But his career shows that he was merely
enabled by his want of a high moral character and fixed prin-
ciples to accommodate himself to any circumstances, and so make
the best of life.*

Aristippus was the son of Aritades, an opulent merchant of
Cyrene. He came to see the Olympic games, which, from
Pindar’s time had been a favourite resort of his countrymen, and
was led by the encomiums of Ischomachus, whom he met there,
to extend his journey to Athens for the purpose of making the

1 Cic. de Offictis, I. 41 : ‘Cynicorum natio tota ejicienda est; est enim inimica
verecundiz, sine qué nihil rectum esse potest, nihil honestum.’
39 His avowed principles are well expressed in the lines of Horace, I. Zpist. I.
17:
Nunc in Aristippi furtim precepta relabor,
Et mihi res non me rebus subjungere conor.
3 ἔχω ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἔχομαι. Diog. Laért, II. 8, 75. This was said especially with
reference to Lais.
4 So Horace says of him (1. Zpist. XVII. 23) :
Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res,
Tentantem majora, fere presentibus equum.
Diog. Laért. II. 8, 866 : ἣν δὲ ἱκανὸς ἁρμόσασθαι καὶ τόπῳ Kal χρόνῳ καὶ προσώπῳ
καὶ πᾶσαν περίστασιν ἁρμονίως ὑποκρίνασθαι.

ARISTIPPUS. 179

acquaintance of Socrates. He attached himself to this phi-
losopher, and was one of his regular associates till the time of
his death; but his fellow-pupil, Plato, who had never much
toleration for him, seems to intimate that, being close at hand,
he allowed some inadequate excuse to prevent him from attending
his master at the time when he drank the hemlock in prison.’
Although his native city has given its name to the school which
he founded, Aristippus lived very little at Cyrene. Indeed he
did not hesitate to avow to Socrates himself that he lived away
from home in order to avoid the duties of a Greek citizen. His
time was spent either at Athens, where he was a student, or at
Corinth, where he lived with the notorious courtezan, Lais,’ or
at Syracuse, where he was the obsequious parasite of the tyrant
Dionysius.* It is said that he was once taken prisoner by
Artaphernes the satrap.’ In his later years he returned to
Cyrene, and spent the remainder of his long life there, being
principally engaged in communicating his system of philosophy
to his daughter Arete, by whom it was taught to her son, Aris-
tippus,° and he is supposed by some to have completed and
systematized the doctrines of his uncle. The highest praise
that can be bestowed upon the character of Aristippus is that
he seems to have enjoyed, either from natural temperament, or
from diligent self-control, a very remarkable calmness and. tran-
quillity, which would have done credit to any philosopher.’ And
though he justified his self-indulgence, he declared that he should
be able at any moment to relinquish his pleasures without a
sigh. If the long list of his writings, which is given by

1 Plutarch, de Cwrios.2, vol. III., p. 79, Wyttenbach: Plutarch says here, with
regard to the philosophy of Socrates, ἧς ἣν τέλος ἐπιγνῶναι τὰ ἑαυτοῦ κακὰ καὶ
ἀπαλλαγῆναι.

3 Phedo, p.59 D: τί dal; ᾿Αρίστιππος καὶ Κλεόμβροτος παρεγένοντο; οὐ δῆτα"
ἐν Αἰγίνῃ γὰρ ἐλέγοντο εἶναι. ;

_ 8. Athenzeus, XII. p. 544. XIII. p. 588. Two of his works were entitled
πρὸς Λαΐδα and πρὸς Λαΐδα rept τοῦ κατόπτρου (Diog. Laert, IT. 84).

* Diog. Laért. vita Aristippi, passim. ὅ Brucker, Hist. Phil. II. 2,3. p.589 note u.

6 Suidas, s.v. διήκουσε δὲ αὐτοῦ ἡ θυγάτηρ᾽ Ἀρήτη, ἀφ᾽ ἧς ὁ παῖς αὐτῆς ὁ νέος ᾿Αρί-
στιππος ὃς ἐκλήθη Μητροδίδακτος. Cf. Diog. L. II. 86, from whom this is taken,
and Ailian, Hist. Anim. IIT. 40.

7 This is shown by the numerous anecdotes in Diogenes.

_§ This is implied in the saying quoted by Diog. Laért. II. 69, p. 134: εἰσιών ποτε
eis ἑταίρας οἰκίαν... οὐ τὸ εἰσελθεῖν, ἔφη, χαλεπόν, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι ἐξελθεῖν.
We Qa

180 FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

Diogenes Laértius, is at all correct, he must have been an in-
dustrious man of letters. Sosicrates of Rhodes said that he
wrote nothing, but the catalogue of his works is given on the
authority of Sotion and Panetius.' Besides philosophical
treatises on ‘virtue, ‘education,’ ‘fortune, &c., a history of
Libya, in three books, is attributed to him. It is difficult to
discriminate between the doctrines which were developed by
Aristippus himself, and those which were elaborated by the
other teachers of the Cyrenaic school. Aristotle, who mentions
Aristippus as a Sophist,? attributes to Eudoxus, and not to him,
the exaltation of pleasure to the rank of the swmmum bonum,
which he combats in the tenth book of his Zthics.2 In general,
it may be said, that Aristippus confined himself to a sort of
moral philosophy which maintained that happiness (εὐδαιμονία)
and pleasure (ἡδονή) were convertible terms; and which, by
seeking the end of life in the materials of the world of sense,
naturally led to atheism, as was shown by the surname Atheus,
which is given to THroporus, one of this school. The five
points of the system of Aristippus, which some have attributed to
his nephew,’ are as follows :* (1.) ‘ Concerning things to be chosen
and avoided’ (περὶ αἱρετῶν Kai φευκτῶν) : under this head he
maintained that the end of life was transitory pleasure ; for that
the present alone belongs to man, the past being no longer
available, and the future precarious. (2.) ‘Concerning the
affections’ (περὶ παθῶν) : under this head he gave his definition
of pleasure. There were, he said, three conditions: pleasure,
which he compared to calm and even motion, as when a vessel
is borne to its haven by a gentle and favouring breeze; in-
difference, which he compared to a dead and windless calm ;

1 Diog. Laért. IT. 85, p. 144 B.

2 Metaph. B. (III.) p. 996 a, 32: τῶν σοφιστῶν τινὲς οἷον ᾿Αρίστιππος προεπη-
λάκιζεν αὐτάς. In one point at least Aristippus approximated to the Sophists, that
he took fees for his teaching. Suidas, s.v.

3 Eth. Nic. X. 2, τ.

«4 Professor Thompson (Butler's Lectures, I. p. 452) says: ‘Aristippus the elder,
' though the fact of his authorship is disputed (Diog. L. II. 8, 84), was undoubtedly
the inventor of the Cyrenaic system. He must even have developed it in a logical
and systematic form.’ This is argued from the references to his views in the
Theetetus and Philebus, where they are made the subject of formal refutation.

> Sextus Empiricus, Lib, VII. § 11. Adversus Logicos, p. 372, ed. Fabricius,"

ARISTIPPUS. 181

pain, which he compared to a storm, in which the vessel is
driven from its port, and exposed to danger. In this definition
he stands directly opposed to the Epicureans, who insisted that
pleasure was the state of absolute rest. (3.) ‘Concerning
actions’ (περὶ πράξεων) : here he maintained that actions were
neither good nor bad in themselves; that virtue consisted in
that which conduced to pleasure of any kind; and he perverted
the Socratic connexion between ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ by making
his virtue a sort of common sense, or presence of mind (φρόνησις),
which, as he said of himself, enabled the philosopher to live
happily anywhere. (4.) ‘ Concerning causes’ (περὶ αἰτίων) : in
speaking of causes the Cyrenaics did not mean physical causes,
but merely the outward occasions of our bodily sensations. In
regard to these man is merely passive; and as it is the business
of the wise man, in the Cyrenaic sense, to get the greatest
amount of pleasure out of the world around him, he must as far
as possible transform disagreeable sensations into sources of en-
joyment, either by evading or by modifying them. In this part
of his theory Aristippus is quite as much the object of Plato’s
criticisms in the Theetetus, as Protagoras, who is mentioned
there by name, and of course no one will doubt that the theory
of pleasure, which it is one of the objects of the Philebus to
controvert, must have been systematically put forward by the
founder of the Cyrenaic philosophy. (5.) ‘Concerning proofs’
(περὶ πίστεων) : of the Cyrenaic views on this subject we have a
definite and intelligible account in the pages of Sextus Em-
piricus.’ From this statement it is quite clear that the school
of Aristippus admitted no criterion except the senses: and
these gave a different result for every man. In some respects
they have found a modern representative of their views in Horne

1 Lib. VII. adv. Logicos, §§ 191—200. We agree with Fabricius (ad Sezt. p.
371,) that this passage refers to the πίστεις of the Cyrenaics. Some have thought
that he is speaking περὶ αἰτίων, but he says at the beginning ὃ 191, that the Cyre-
naics make the πάθη the κριτήρια, and that these alone are conceivable and not
fallacious: τῶν δὲ πεποιηκότων τὰ πάθη (i.e. the atria) μηδὲν εἶναι καταληπτὸν μηδὲ
ἄψευστον, and at the end of his explanation he remarks, ὃ 200: πάντων οὖν τῶν
ὄντων τὰ πάθη κριτήριά ἐστι καὶ τέλη" ζῶμεν δέ, φασιν, ἑπόμενοι τούτοις ἐναργείᾳ
μὲν κατὰ τὰ ἄλλα πάθη εὐδοκήσει δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἡδονήν. So that he is clearly speaking
of the evidence of the senses, and not of that which produces sensation.

182 FOUNDATION OF THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

Tooke,’ in others Bishop Berkeley is in agreement with them.
When the ultra-nominalistic philologer declared that truth is
only what each man troweth, he said much the same as the
Cyrenaics, who maintained’ that ‘there was no common cri-
terion for men, but that common names were used to designate
their independent judgments.’ And when Berkeley denied the
demonstrable existence of an external world, he did not differ
from the Cyrenaics, who declared’ that ‘it is only the affection
or sensation which appears to us, and that what is without us
and is the cause of the sensation, may perhaps exist, but does
not appear to us.’

The doctrines of Aristippus and his nephew were farther de-
veloped by Hecrsias, THroporvus, and AwnnicERis,‘ and ulti-
mately merged in the system of Epicurus.

As a matter of literary curiosity, and for the light which they
would have thrown on the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle, we
must regret that we have no remains of the doctrinal writings
of Eucleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus. In themselves, how-
ever, these philosophers can be regarded only as the authors of
systems which pushed to extravagance the broad and distinctive
features of the teaching of Socrates, and they perhaps produced
the only permanent effect of which they were capable, when they
exacted a formal refutation of their views from the searching
dialectics of their great contemporary Plato.

1 See New Cratylus, 8 61.

3 Sext. Emp. VIT. § 195: ἔνθεν οὐδὲ κριτήριόν φασιν εἶναι κοινὸν ἀνθρώπων"
ὀνόματα δὲ κοινὰ τίθεσθαι τοῖς κρίμασι.

8 id. § 194: μόνον τὸ πάθος ἡμῖν ἐστὶ φαινόμενον" τὸ δ᾽ ἐκτὸς καὶ τοῦ πάθους ποιη-
τικὸν τάχα μέν ἐστιν ὄν, οὐ φαινόμενον δὲ ἡμῖν.

4 It is worth while to notice that Anniceris, who differed from Aristippus by
maintaining the unselfish virtues of patriotism, friendship, &c., exhibited the prac-
tical result of this improved philosophy by ransoming Plato from slavery.

183

CHAPTER XXXVIII,.
XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

§ 1. Life and adventures of Xenophon. ὃ 2. The practical design of his writings.
§ 3. His Grecian History; its merits and defects. § 4. The Anabasis. § 5.
The Memorials and Apology of Socrates. § 6. The Cyropedia and Agesilaus.
§ 7. Xenophon’s minor tracts. ὃ 8. The leading characteristics of his style.
§ 9. Ctesias, a contemporary of Xenophon ; his works.

§ 1. ENOPHON, the son of Gryllus, was born at Athens,

probably about Ol. 84, 2. B.c. 443.’ Of his early years
we know nothing beyond the fact that he fought in the battle of
Delium (8.c. 424,) among the Athenian cavalry, and that his
life was saved by Socrates, who, after he had fallen wounded
from his horse, carried him for some distance from the field of
battle: He had accidentally met with this philosopher, who
was struck with his handsome and intelligent countenance, and
almost constrained him to join his society. ‘Another of his
intimates was Proxenus, a Beotian, and a disciple of Gorgias,
who afterwards exercised an important influence on his destiny.’

1 The date of Xenophon’s birth is still, as it has always been, a doubtful point.
Τὸ is very difficult to resist the general impression conveyed by the Anabasis, where
he seems to be always spoken of as a comparatively young man, in B.c. 401. But
the chief passage in that work (III. 1 § 25: οὐδὲν προφασίζομαι τὴν ἡλικίαν, ἀλλὰ
καὶ ἀκμάζειν ἡγοῦμαι ἐρύκειν ἀπ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ τὰ κακά) is rather for than against the
supposition that he was then above 40 (see Thucyd. V. 26, and comp. ch. XXXIV.
§ 1, p. 89 note), and the combination pointed out by Schneider, of the passages
in Xen. Sympos. IV. ὃ 25, and Mem. I. 3, § το, proves that Xenophon must have
been a young man in Ol. 89, 4. B.c. 421; consequently, he was born about B.c.
442 or 443, and might therefore have been present at the battle of Delium, as
Strabo expressly tells us that he was (p. 403). The statement of Pseudo- Lucian
(Maerob. c. 21), that he was more than go years old when he died, combined with
the statement of Stesicleides (Diog. Laért. II. 56), that he died in Ol. 105, 1. B.C.
359, would imply that he was born even earlier than Ol. 84, 2; but there is reason
to believe that Stesicleides is in error, and that Xenophon’s death did not take place
till some years later than B.C. 359.

2 An anecdote mentioned by Philostratus (vit. Prodici, p. 496) implies that
Xenophon spent some time as a prisoner of war in Beeotia, and it has been sug-
gested that this must have been after the taking of Oropus by the Beeotians in Ol,
92, I. B.0. 412. Did this event lead to his intimacy with Proxenus ?

184 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

What was the tenor of his employments during the first forty
years of his life, we do not know, but we can easily guess. It
is quite clear that his chief wish was to become a well educated
man, (καλὸς κἀγαθός) according to Socratic principles,’ and that
he felt very little inclination to act a part in the important
political events which were then taking place. That he was no
friend to the Demus appears both from his subsequent career
and also from the fact that he was unmolested by the Thirty.
It is not improbable that it was immediately after the restora-
tion of democracy by Thrasybulus, that he set down on paper
the events of the last six years of the Peloponnesian War, and
of the few years that succeeded; and the memoirs which he
then composed form the first two books of his Hellenica, or
Grecian history; a work which he afterwards continued in a
very different spirit; for, though we do not detect in the first
part any great partiality to the patriots of Phyle, and may,
perhaps, remark a strong feeling in favour of Theramenes, it is
at least free from that bitter animosity to the institutions of
his country which he afterwards displayed. In the year 401,
B.c., he received a letter from his friend Proxenus, who had
entered into the service of Cyrus, urging him to come to Sardis,
and pay his court to the Persian prince, whose favour, he, Proxe-
nus, valued far more highly than any advantages which his native
land could offer him. ‘The prospect thus held out to him of
acquiring riches and honour in a foreign land was too tempting
to a daring and restless character, to whom Athens, under its
revived democracy, was already, perhaps, sufficiently distasteful ;
and though he made a show of consulting his friend Socrates
on the subject, it is. clear that Xenophon had already deter-
mined to accept the proposal of Proxenus: for, when Socrates
pointed out to him the probable effect which would be produced
upon the minds of the Athenians in general by his attachment
to the cause of one of their greatest enemies, and recommended
him to consult the Delphian oracle, Xenophon merely asked of
the god what preliminary sacrifices he ought to make in order
to secure success in his undertaking, having made up his mind
to brave all risks rather than lose such a promising chance.’

1 Diog. Laért. ΤΙ, 48. 2 Anabasis III. 1, § 6.

XENOPHON AS A LITERARY MAN. 185

Accordingly, he joined the Greek mercenaries of Cyrus, as a

volunteer, and after the battle of Cynaxa became virtually their
leader. The part which he played on the retreat belongs to
Greek history, or rather to the history of the world, for it is
not too much to say that he first demonstrated the problem
which was practically solved some sixty years later by Alexander
the Great. But the consequences of the step which he had
taken were justly foreseen by Socrates. Instead of returning
to Athens to resume his rights of citizenship, and to enjoy the
riches and reputation which he had obtained by his courage and
abilities, he was condemned to exile from his native city, and
came back to Greece as a soldier in the army of Agesilaus. After
fighting against his countrymen in the battle of Coronea, he
took up his abode at Scillus in Elis, where the Lacedzemonians,
to reward his services, had given him, together with the provenia,
a grant of land and a house; and he subsequently purchased
some ground in the neighbouring vale out of the proceeds of
the votive tithe of his Asiatic booty. Here he built a small
temple, dedicated to Diana of Ephesus, in whose honour he
celebrated an annual festival, much frequented by the people of
the neighbourhood. The temple was surrounded by meadow-
lands, and forests rich in game, which enabled Xenophon to
indulge in his favourite pastime of hunting. This exercise, the
society of his friends, and the labours of authorship occupied
all his time, and he died at a very advanced age, either at
Corinth or in Athens, to which city he is said to have returned
in consequence of a revocation of the edict of banishment passed
against him many years before.’

§ 2. We must regard Xenophon, chiefly if not entirely, as a
literary man. Great as were his exploits in Asia, we should
scarcely have heard his name had it not been for his own
writings. And yet it must be admitted ‘that his talents were
not literary, or in general speculative, but, on the contrary, ex-
clusively practical. The intellectual bearing, and the philoso-

1 If Xenophon was born in B.0. 443, and died at the age of go, as the Pseudo-
Lucian (i.e. Phlegon of Tarsus) tells us, the year of his death will be Ol. 106, 4.
B.C. 353, and as he mentions the death of Alexander of Phere, B.c. 357, (Hellen.
VI. 4, ὃ 35), and the beginning of the Sacred war Β.0, 356, 355, (de Veetig. V.
§ 9), his death could not have taken place much before this,

--- ....

186 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

phical consequences of the doctrines of Socrates, he seems to
have been utterly incapable of appreciating, or even thoroughly
comprehending : but no one was better able to understand the
practical application of the rule that every man should discover
and follow after that which was most for his happiness. Only
it is to be feared, that if he did not, with some of the Cyrenaics,
sacrifice morality to his love of pleasure, he at all events did
not allow any patriotic feelings to interfere with his pursuit of
the profitable. Ifthe awakening of the idea of science gene-
rated the perfection of subjective reflection in the case of Plato,
the γνῶθι σεαυτὸν of Socrates did not fail to produce in his
other great disciple a notable concentration of practical selfish-
ness. We observe traces of this in every one of his writings ;
in fact it is their prevailing characteristic. Without such a love
of self and the vanity which accompanies it, the works of Xeno-
phon would most likely never have seen the light. They seem
to have been, with one or two exceptions, designed to justify
the author’s conduct: to explain to the world the causes which
led to the failure of his selfish plans. A man like Xenophon,
possessed of great abilities, but yet without moral strength, is
fretfully careful about the opinion of the world: and we can
readily imagine, that, little as he esteemed Athens, he would feel
himself in a false position after his banishment, and would em-
ploy his long years of leisure in giving the world some account,
as favourable a one as he could contrive, of the circumstances
which had led to his exile from the land of his birth. The
great bulk of his works are memoirs and tracts more or less
referring to this. Not to speak of his minor treatises, it is
probable that he composed them in the following series. The
first two books of the Hellenica, called by later writers the
Paralipomena of Thucydides, appear to us to have been composed
between B.c. 403 and 401. His history of the Anabasis, or
expedition of Cyrus the younger, and the consequent retreat of
the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries, was probably the fruit of
the first years of leisure which he spent at Scillus. The Memo-
rabilia of Socrates were not written till some time after the
death of that philosopher, but were certainly prior to the
Cyropedia, a political romance relating to the founder of the
Persian empire, not finished till after Ol. 104, 3. B.c. 362, and to

WORKS OF XENOPHON. 187

the last five books of the Hellenica, which were written after the
beginning of Ol. 106, B.c. 356, and were therefore one of the
last, if not the very last of his works. In speaking of the
separate works, we shall treat of them in this order, with the
exception of the Hellenica, which it will be more convenient to
consider in its present state, that is, as one work.

§ 3. Niebuhr was the first to point out the marks of time
which prove the separate composition of the first two and of
the five subsequent books of Xenophon’s Greek History." At
the end of the second book, the author, speaking of the termi-
nation of the expedition against Eleusis, says: ‘and having sworn
to an amnesty, they still live together as fellow citizens, and the
Demus abides by its oaths”? Now it appears from the termi-
nation of the fourth chapter of the sixth book, that this part of
the work was composed during the reign of Tisiphonus, the
tyrant of Phere,’ which was forty-four years after the termina-
tion of the anarchy. Consequently, it is scarcely conceivable
that Xenophon could have written or published for the first
time the first two books at the same time with the latter books
thus referred to Ol. 106; otherwise he must have expressed
himself very differently with regard to the observation of the
amnesty, by the democratical party which had banished himself,
punished Eratosthenes, condemned Socrates, and had not, for a
long time after that period, forgotten all its old animosities ;
though perhaps, in the end, it recalled Xenophon himself from
exile. But, besides these marks of time we cannot mistake the
strong internal evidence by which they are supported. The
style and tone of the first part is totally at variance with that
of the second, and we may see from the former, clear indica-
tions of the fact that he must have composed his continuation
of Thucydides at Atheus, and under the eyes of his fellow
citizens. It is indeed stated, that he was the editor as well as
the continuer of Thucydides,‘ and this is a sufficient proof that he
must have written the continuation in his native city. Now he
left Athens to join Proxenus in B.c. 401, and did not return

1 See the Philolog. Museum, Vol. I. p. 485.
2 IL. 3, § 43: ἔτι καὶ νῦν ὁμοῦ τε πολιτεύονται Kal τοῖς ὅρκοις ἐμμένει ὁ δῆμος.
3 ἄχρι οὗ ὅδε ὁ λόγος ἐγράφετο, Τισίφονος---τὴν ἀρχὴν εἶχε.

* Diog. Laért. ΤΙ, 57: λέγεται δ᾽ ὅτι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θουκυδίδου βιβλία λανθάνοντα
ὑφελέσθαι δυνάμενος αὐτὸς εἰς δόξαν ἤγαγεν.

188 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

thither till towards the end of his life. Since, then, it is pro-
bable that Thucydides died soon after his own recal from exile,
in Β. Ο. 403, and since his history would certainly be published
soon after his death, it follows that Xenophon must have edited
the history together with the continuation down to B.c. 403,
some time between that year and B.c. 401. The first two books
of the Hellenica, which formed this continuation, are certainly
very far superior to the last five, but they are not to be men-
tioned in the same breath with the work of Thucydides. There
is not in any one of the writings of Xenophon a real developement
of one great and pervading idea. In all of them there is singular
clearness, and a certain picturesqueness of description which
occasionally reminds one of Herodotus; but he has none of the
dignity of history, and his most tragic scenes are painted less with
the genius of a poet than with the minute precision of a collec-
tor of anecdotes. The speeches which he has introduced are
seldom long or laboured, and are clearly not inserted systema-
tically like those of Thucydides: but some of them are very
animated, especially those of Thrasybulus, in the second,’ and
of Procles in the sixth book.? But he is more excellent in his
dramatic sketches of isolated occurrences: his description of the
interview between Agesilaus and Pharnabazes,’ and his account
of Cinadon’s conspiracy ἡ are peculiarly effective in this respect.
His mind seems to have dwelt upon minor particulars, and he
hunted up trifling incidents with all the avidity of a modern
book-maker. He is careful to give us the metrical despatch of
Hippocrates,’ and, though with a half apology, the dying witti-
cism of Theramenes ;° he makes Leotychides and Agesilaus dis-
pute in Spartan Doric,’ and would, no doubt, have made his
Satraps talk Persian, if either his readers or himself had been
familiar with that language. These features of his history,
combined with the facility and simplicity of his style, will
always make him an entertaining author, and gain for him the

1 TI. 4, ὃ 40, seqq. 2 VI. 5, ὃ 38, seqq.

8 TV. τ, ὃ 29, seqq. 4 IIL. 3, ὃ 5, seqq.

5 I. 1, §23. The first words are incorrectly written and explained by most, if
not all, of the commentators. “Eppec τὰ κᾶλα (not τὰ καλά), means ‘the ships are
lost ;? comp. Aristoph, Lysist. 1253. Ion, apud Athen. p. 412 B.

6 II. 3, § 56. Above, p. 164. 7 III. 3, §:2.

WORKS OF XENOPHON. 189

admiration of those who do not look below the surface of
things ; but criticism cannot allow him a place among great
historians, and the scholar will hardly concede to Lucian that
he was an impartial writer :' his devotion to Agesilaus, his love
for Sparta, and the animosity with which he regarded the de-
mocratic party at Athens, did not allow him to take a fair view
of a contest, in which his hero played the principal part, and in
which the city that cast him forth from her bosom was opposed
to the state which had given him shelter and hospitality.

The period included in the seven books of Xenophon’s
Hellenica extends from Ol. 92, 3. B.c. 410 to Ol. 104, 3. 8.6.
362. He does not mark the succession of events very accu-
rately, but when he does so he adopts the notation of Thucy-
dides, and counts by summers and winters. In the first two
books we find also the names of archons and ephors and the
numbers of Olympiads, but these are clearly interpolations of a
later date. He sometimes gives the year of the Peloponnesian
war, like his predecessor, but great errors have crept into his
numbers in this respect.

§ 4. The name of Xenophon is most favourably known from his
Anabasis, or ‘ expedition up the country’ of Cyrus the younger,
where the author has described, in the most lively and pleasing-
manner, the celebrated retreat of the Ten Thousand, in which
he bore so prominent a part. That this work was written by
Xenophon is proved not merely by the style, but by the express
testimony of Plutarch? and Diogenes Laértius ;* it was pub-
lished, however, under the name of Themistogenes of Syra-
cuse,* and is quoted by Xenophon himself under that title.
It is stated that there was an author of this name, and that he
wrote other works relating to Sicily ;° but it is more probable
that Xenophon invented the name which he assumed.’ The

1 Lucian, De Conscribendd Historia, ὃ 40, p. 52.

2 De Glor. Ath., p. 345. 8 Vit. Xenoph. 11. ὃ 57.
4. Plutarch, ubi supr.; Schol. ad Tzetz. Epist. XX1: ὥσπερ καὶ Ξενοφῶν ἐπέγραψε
τὴν Κύρου ἀνάβασιν Θεμιστογένει Συρακουσίῳ. 5 Hellen. III. 1, ὃ 2.

§ Suidas, 5. v.: Θεμιστογένης Συρακούσιος ἱστορικός. Κύρου ἀνάβασιν, ἥτις ἐν τοῖς
Ξενοφῶντος Ἑλληνικοῖς φέρεται, καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδος.

7 Τὸ has been suggested that the name means, ‘a son of right, who became a
Syrian (i.e. served the barbarian) against his will.’ Niebuhr thinks that the name
refers to Dionysius and his princely birth.

190 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

reasons which induced him to write this history of his Eastern
campaign also operated with him in withholding his name. It
was designed as a justification of his conduct, and as a proof to
the Athenians that they had deprived themselves of the services
of a brave and skilful officer; and it is clear that such an
apology would come with the best grace from a stranger’s pen.
A Greek Lexicographer’ speaks of it as having formed part of
the Hellenica : and it has been suggested by Niebuhr’ that, as
the first two books of the Hellenica, added to the eight of
Thucydides, formed the number ten, one in which the Athenians
delighted, so the remaining five of the Hellenica added to the
seven books of the Anabasis formed the number twelve, also of
great importance in the arrangements of Ionie¢ states. In addi-
tion to this we may observe that every book of the Anabdasis,
after the first, with the exception of the sixth, which seems
to have suffered some loss at the beginning, commences with a
recapitulation of the preceding part of the narrative, and we
may remark something of the same kind at the commencement
of the third book of the Hellenica: so that the last five books
of the latter may have heen originally appended to the Anabasis,
and were not till afterwards attached to the continuation of
Thucydides. Although Xenophon has called this history of
his adventures the Anadasis, or expedition of Cyrus, that expe-
dition, as far as Cyrus was concerned, finishes with the first
book ; and the six remaining books are occupied with the far
more interesting account of the manner in which the Greek
mercenaries escaped from their perilous situation in the heart
of the Persian empire, and, after fighting their way through
hosts of barbarians, in Kurdistan and elsewhere, arrived at the
Euxine, and so proceeded along the sea-shore till they came to
the coast of the Aigzean. It is difficult to describe the charm
which this book has always had for the modern reader; the
minuteness of detail, the picturesque simplicity of the style,
and the air of reality and truth which pervade it, have made
it a favourite with every age: and it is still eminently interest-
ing and instructive to the military reader and the geographer.
But at the time when it appeared it must have been looked

1 Suidas, s.v. Θεμιστογένης. 2 Philol. Mus. I., p. 488.

WORKS OF XENOPHON. 191

upon as practically one of. the most important works ever
written, and many a Greek general and statesman, till Philip
resolved on, and Alexander undertook, the proof of the proposi-
tion, must have reflected on the author’s assertion, that ‘ the
kingdom of Persia, though powerful from its extent and popu-
lation, was yet by reason of the distance between one place and
another, and the dispersion of its military force, weak as against
an active general.’?

§ 5. After having attempted to justify his own proceedings in
Asia by the recital of his adventures, Xenophon seems to have
thought it his next business to undertake the defence of his
friend and teacher, Socrates, who had suffered the punishment
of death during his absence from Europe. This he has done in
two works, a slighter and more trivial essay called the Defence
of Socrates, and a larger work, in four books, entitled the
Memorials of Socrates. The latter seems to have been com-
posed some little time after his return: he speaks of the death
of Socrates in the same terms which he uses in speaking of the
amnesty of Thrasybulus in his second book of Hellenica,’ which,
we have seen, must have been written within two years of the
events there narrated; and the general tone of the work would lead
us to conclude that it could not have been published long after
the death of the philosopher. In this work, asin his Anabasis,
he justifies rather by narrative than by argument. In the first
book, indeed, he attempts a series of answers to the five different
points in the accusation, but few critical readers will think that
he has made good the grounds of his defence. In general, he
seems to have misunderstood the theoretical importance of the
doctrines of Socrates, and to have wilfully misrepresented their
practical bearing, which he so well understood and acted upon.
It is agreed by scholars and philosophical writers that no
adequate idea of the worth of Socrates as a philosopher can be
derived from the Memorials of Xenophon. In regard to the
higher matters of philosophy, the author of this book can only
claim the dubious merits of a Boswell, who seeks to record, to

1 Anabas. I. 5, § 9.
2 Memor. IV. 8, § 11: τῶν δὲ Σ. γιγνωσκόντων, οἷος ἣν, οἱ ἀρετῆς ἐφιέμενοι πάντες

ἔτι καὶ νῦν διατελοῦσι πάντων μάλιστα ποθοῦντες ἐκεῖνον, ὡς ὠφελιμώτατον ὄντα
πρὸς ἀρετῆς ἐπιμέλειαν,

192 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

the best of his ability, the conversations of a very superior man,
which he admired and listened to, but did not thoroughly com-
prehend. With very little toleration for philosophy in general,
aud no accurate conceptions as to the Socratic system of
dialectics, it is not to be expected that his work should be a
good exponent of the teaching of his master. At the same
time, it is possible to gather from isolated passages some frag-
ments of the moral philosophy of Socrates; and the method
which results from a combination of these may be profitably
compared with that which forms the basis of Plato’s ethics.
Thus we find traces of the four-fold division of virtue which is
so prominent in the writings of Plato. There is, however, this
remarkable distinction between the Socratic opinions on the
cardinal virtues as set forth by Xenophon and the same as
developed by Plato. In Xenophon’s Memorials, Socrates is
introduced as acknowledging three separate virtues—temperance,
which is the foundation of them all,’ courage,’ and justice,’ and
these are all included in the virtue of wisdom or prudence.’
This seems to be quite in accordance with the Socratic doctrine
of self-consciousness as we learn it from Aristotle. For with
Socrates there was always an interweaving of the scientific with
the moral: in other words, knowledge is the moving cause of the
will, and good is the final cause of knowledge; hence the
knowledge of what justice is must lead to the being just, for no
one would cf his own accord relinquish what he knows to be
good. Plato, on the other hand, makes Socrates acknowledge
three separate virtues—temperance (which in his earliest
dialogue he seems to consider as the basis of all virtue),
courage, and prudence or wisdom; while the harmony or
unison of these constitutes justice. In this particular, we
must admit that Xenophon has given us a truer representation
of the teaching of Socrates than his more philosophical brother
disciple. And this may perhaps serve as a specimen of the
manner in which Plato has enlarged and modified the Socratic
element in his philosophy. Both Socrates and Plato started
from the four-fold division of virtue, but the theory of Plato’s

17. 5, 8.4: τὴν ἐγκρατείαν ἀρετῆς εἶναι κρηπῖδα.
2 TV. 6. § το. 3 IV. 4. § 12- ὃ 21, seqq. ae ἘΣ

WORKS OF XENOPHON. 193

Utopia necessitated a subordination of all virtue to justice, while
the Socratic doctrine of knowledge or science assumed that all
the virtues sprung from wisdom or prudence. The little allegory
generally known as the Choice of Hercules, which has been often
selected from Xenophon’s Memorials of Socrates as most pecu-
liarly worthy of admiration, was probably an actual abridgment
of the celebrated Epideixis of Prodicus, to whom Xenophon
attributes it. Later writers speak of it as the Xenophontean
or Socratic Hercules,’ perhaps because the original work was no
longer extant, and because every one was familiar with the
apologue as given by Xenophon. At all events, we know that
Prodicus wrote such an allegory, and the manner in which
Xenophon has introduced it, bears no analogy to Plato’s intro-
duction in the Phedrus of a speech composed for Lysias to
characterize and expose the peculiar defects of his style.

The Apology of Socrates is a short and rather feeble tract,
referring more immediately to the cause of that philosopher’s
condemnation to death—namely, his contumelious behaviour
after the verdict had been given against him. Xenophon
endeavours to excuse this, by showing that Socrates really pre-
ferred death to life, and that his consciousness of his own
innocence prevented him from naming any punishment as due
to the offence of which he had been convicted. The modern
reader will smile at the impotent malice with which he has
recorded the intemperance of the son of Anytus.

§ 6. From the data at the end of the Cyropedia, it appears
that this treatise was written after Ol. 104, 3. B.c. 362.7 That
the work did not lay claim to be considered as a history, but
was only a political and moral romance, like the Télemaque of
Fenelon, is not only sufficiently clear from internal evidence,
but is expressly acknowledged by many ancient writers.’
It was in fact the only mode in which Xenophon, with his habits
- and peculiar bias, could draw up and set forth a theory of
government, in accordance with the practice of most of the
eminent post-Socratic writers. Some of the ancients tell us

1 Cicero, ad Fam. V.12. Varro, ap. Non. p. 168, 539, 542.
2 VIII. 8, § 4, where he alludes to circumstances which took place during the
Aigyptian revolt against Artaxerxes Mnemon.
3 e.g. Cicero, ad Quint. fr. I. τ, 8, 23.
Vou. II, ο

194 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

that the Cyropedia was written in opposition to the Republic
of Plato.’ Whatever we may think of this, it is at least clear
that there is a remarkable contrast between them. This con-
trast we consider as flowing immediately from the opposition
between the characters and destinies of the two authors, though
they both worked out the Socratic principle, each in his own
way. Political theories were a prominent feature of the litera-
ture which sprung from the Socratic school. It seems indeed
to have been a natural consequence of the selfish system which
was one practical result of that philosophy. In the older and
simpler times of Greece, the member of a Greek community
was quite content to perform the duties and enjoy the privileges
of citizenship. To fight for his country in her militia, and to
vote in her public assemblies, was the end of his wishes and the
limit of his ambition. The general disorganization, however,
produced by the Peloponesian war, swept away in its vortex
both the citizen soldier and the citizen statesman; and while
the warrior thought himself justified in letting out his strength
or his skill to the best bidder, without any regard to the interests
of his native land, the man of letters, full of his self-conscious-
ness, and exulting in a sense of his superiority, framed political
theories at variance with the constitution of his own city, and
endeavoured to recommend, by fiction or by argument, his
own abstract speculations respecting the best form of govern-
ment. The older philosophers had busied themselves with exist-
ing constitutions, holding public offices and administering the
laws with a view to the amelioration of the actual state of
things. But although Socrates had sought to work on Athens
itself through the medium of his individual disciples, those of
his scholars, who thought and wrote for themselves, were far
from taking any state as their model or as the ground-work of
their labours. They first formed for themselves some concep-
tion of a perfect state, and then set about realizing their con-
ception without reference to the institutions of any Grecian
commonwealth. Thus Plato believed that the happiness of a
state depended upon its having a philosophical ruler, under
whose mild and beneficent government every part of virtue

1 Diogen. Laert. Plato, (III. ὃ 34.).

WORKS OF XENOPHON. 195

would receive its due development: hence, his earnest and
repeated attempts to give a right direction to the mind of the
younger Dionysius; hence his intercourse with Dion; and
hence the attempts of his scholars Euagon, Cheron, and
Timzeus. Xenophon’s partialities were those of the mercenary
soldier rather than those of the philosopher. Military men, with
some traits of generosity and moderation to soften the asperity
of their character, were the only heroes for him. He was quite
prepared to idolize the younger Cyrus, as we see from his men-
tion of various particulars connected with the fratricidal expedi-
tion of that prince. But after his return from Asia, the Spartan
Agesilaus was the sole object of his enthusiastic admiration; by his
side he fought against his own country, and for his sake he
eulogized the Spartan constitution, while he depreciated that of
Athens. As, however, no man, not even Agesilaus, and no state,
not even Sparta, quite came up to the idea which he had formed
of a country under the absolute government of a wise and warlike
but perfectly virtuous prince, he turned back to Persia and its
first Cyrus, and, with reference no doubt to the younger Cyrus,
whom he had wished to place on the Eastern throne, drew an
elaborate picture of the various successes of the first Persian
king, and the various measures which he took to secure the in-
terests and happiness of his people. Feeling that his strong
point was narrative, and considering himself entitled, as a cele-
brated Persian traveller, to say something on the affairs of the
East, he has not scrupled to mix up with his theory a good
deal that is historical, and he concludes with remarks on the
actual degeneracy of the Persians, as a sort of apology to his
Greek readers for the selection of Persia as a model for a per-
fect constitution. There is no doubt, however, that Xenophon,
as well as Isocrates and many other Greeks, looked upon Persia
as the new materials out of which such a government might be
constructed, and considered it the duty and the proper business
of Greece to conquer it: and it is equally clear that, if the great
pupil of Aristotle had enjoyed a longer life, he would have
attempted to give a comprehensive reality to schemes, which, at
the time of his birth, were but dimly seen in the distant future.
In his Panegyric on Agesilaus we perceive, even more clearly
than in the Cyropedia, what sort of a king Xenophon would
oy 7

196 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

have placed at the head of the great military commonwealth
of Greece. In that tract, he tries his hero by the Socratic
model, as it is set forth in his Memorials. Ue shows that
Agesilaus was very attentive to the duties of religion,’ and that
he possessed in an eminent degree the four cardinal virtues? of
justice,®> temperance,* fortitude,’ and wisdom.’ He tells us,
however, that the wisdom for which he praises him was rather
practical than speculative,’ rather that of the statesman and
warrior than that of the philosopher, and we may be sure that
he would never have agreed with Plato in placing the philoso-
phical above the military caste in his state. It is with great
significance too that he remarks on the fondness of Agesilaus
for Greece in general, and his hatred of the barbarians in general,
and of the Persians in particular.*. When Agesilaus heard that
nearly 10,000 Greeks of the party opposed to Sparta had fallen in
the battle of Corinth, instead of rejoicing at the victory which his
friends had obtained, he exclaimed, according to Xenophon, ‘ Alas
for Hellas! those who have now fallen would have been sufficient to
conquer all the barbarians,’—a manifest allusion to Xenophon’s
celebrated retreat, and to the hopes of Eastern conquest in
which so many Greeks indulged.

The literary merits of the Cyropedia are by no means of a
high order. The harangues, which are introduced on every
occasion, important or unimportant, are exceedingly tedious.
The whole work is pervaded by a feeble and mawkish tone which
now and then degenerates into absolute childishness. The
jests between Cyrus and his soldiers are vulgar and indecorous ;
and many of the narratives are prolix and uninteresting. There
are indeed several redeeming passages. There is much simple
pathos in the episode of Panthea and Abradatas ;” the address

1 Agesil. Ὁ. 3, § 2.

3 It is remarkable that the panegyric on Love put into the mouth of Agatho, in
Plato’s Symposium, (p. 196, B.), is made to attribute to that deity these four human
excellences. It is just possible that Plato may have had in view the encomium of
Agesilaus in this passage, as he is supposed to have had his eye on Xenophon’s Sym-
posium in his own rival composition.

Ses as 4 0,55. 5 ¢. 6, § 1, seqq. δ, 6, § 4, seqq.
7 ¢. 11, § 9: καὶ σοφίαν ἔργῳ μᾶλλον ἢ λόγοις ἤσκει.
8 ¢. 4. 9 6. 7, § 5.

10° VI. 1, § 45, 4, § 2. VII. 3, δ 1, seqq.

WORKS OF XENOPHON. 197

of Cyrus to his sons is a pretty moral essay ;’ and his account
of the soul’s immortality has more of exalted reasoning than
we should expect to find in any work of Xenophon.* On the
whole, however, we cannot share in the admiration with which
this work was regarded by many illustrious Romans—especially
Scipio Aimilianus and Cicero.’

§ 7. Several ancient writers have referred to the rivalry or
jealousy supposed to have subsisted between Xenophon and
Plato ; and though modern scholars are disposed to reject the
allegation that there was any open misunderstanding between
these eminent Socratic writers, there can be no doubt that Plato
in his Laws has directed some censures against Xenophon’s
Cyropedia,* and perhaps there is some truth in the assump-
tion of Athenzeus that Plato had Xenophon’s Banquet in his
eye when he wrote his own work bearing the same name.’
Xenophon’s Symposium or Banquet relates what happened at a
feast given by Callias, at his house in the Pireus, in honour
of a victory obtained at the Panathenzea by the young and
handsome pancratiast, Autolycus. The guests, among whom
are Socrates and Antisthenes, amuse themselves with the ab-
surdities of a jester and the feats of a Syracusan stroller and
his company, who performed, among other things, the ballet of
Bacchus and Ariadne: but there is no method in their conver-
sation; no one idea is worked out by the interlocutors ; and
with all its grace and elegance it falls far short, even in these
respects, of the rival work of Plato.

Xenophon’s Ciconomicus, a treatise on agriculture and the
management of a household, is conceived more in the spirit of
Socrates than any of his minor writings. It is a dialogue
between Socrates and Critobulus, which, but for its length,
might have been introduced into the ᾿Απομνημονεύματα, for it
begins abruptly, like the different chapters in that book, with:
ἤκουσά ποτε αὐτοῦ διαλεγομένου, ‘I once heard him convers-
ing” Like many of Plato’s dialogues, it is principally taken
up with the narration by Socrates of another conversation held

- by himself and one Ischomachus on the same subject. In this

1 VIII. 7, § 8, seqq. ; 2 VIII. 7, § 17.
8 Cicero, ad Famil. IX. 25, 1. Tuscul. Disput. II. 26, 62.
4 Plato, Legg. Ill. p. 694, C. 5 Athen, XI. p. 504, E.

198 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

secondary dialogue, Xenophon is careful to show, that, in his
opinion, the καλοκἀγαθὸς was one, who, while he paid due
reverence to the gods, bestowed all his time and talents on the
work of promoting and securing his own interests. In fact,
even in Xenophon, there are few more candid avowals of the
selfish principle, which, as he elsewhere expresses it, is simply
this, that the καλὸν is identical with the ὠφέλιμον. We also
see in this little work strong proofs of the practical bias of
Xenophon’s mind, and his decided preference of the military
man and the farmer above the literary man and philosopher.
The incident related of Cyrus the younger’ is another indica-
tion, among many, of Xenophon’s enthusiasm for this young
and ambitious barbarian. He concludes the work with insist-
ing on the importance of intellectual and moral training to
every one who wished to rule over others without offering any
violence to their inclinations—an object which he seems to
have considered as the one most important to the practical phi-
losopher, and which was certainly the point aimed at in all his
political theories.

The Hiero must be considered as a sort of qualification of
the author’s general approbation of military government and
the employment of mercenaries. It is a dialogue between the
tyrant of Syracuse and the poet Simonides, and its object is to
show, on the one hand, that the lot of the tyrant is far from an
enviable one, and, on the other hand, that there are ways of
obviating the inconveniences and disadvantages attendant on
the possession of absolute power; that it is possible to rule
despotically without forfeiting the affections of subjects; and
that even mercenaries may be so employed as to become
popular.

Of his remaining treatises little need be said. His tracts on
horsemanship and hunting are interesting to the antiquarian,
and his Hipparchichus, or ‘ cavalry tactics,’ must have had its
practical value at the time. His essays on the constitutions of
Sparta and Athens are principally remarkable for the uncandid
and partial views which the author seeks to defend, and for
which he has but poorly atoned in the feeble pamphlet on the

1c. 4. ὃ 17, seqq.

STYLE OF XENOPHON. 199

revenues of Athens, said to have been written by him after his
return from exile, as an offering of peace to his forgiving
countrymen.

§ 8. The diction of Xenophon corresponds in its main
features with the simple or plain style (ἀφελὴς λόγος) of Lysias ;
but in his historical works especially he has tried to imitate the
unperiodic diction (λέξις εἰρομένη) of Herodotus, whom he seems
to have taken as his model, as far as was possible, both in his
style and in his mode of treating his subjects.’ The ancient
rhetoricians, Aristides, Dionysius, and Hermogenes, agree in
considering Xenophon as a designedly plain and simple writer.
The latter says that he is plain (apeAje) to the highest degree,
and that he abounds in this characteristic more than all others
of the declamatory style, insomuch that even when he attempts
anything sublime in the conception, he softens it down to his usual
plainness and simplicity (καθαιρεῖ καὶ [βιάζεται πρὸς τὸ ἀφελές).
This peculiarity of Xenophon’s style is perhaps not altogether
designed. The wandering life which he led, his long absence
from his native land, and his constant intercourse with
foreigners, would tend to remove from his language the diffi-
culty and idiomatic raciness of the Attic dialect, and as Lysias,
a foreigner living at Athens, adopted this plain style in the
orations which he wrote for the Attic courts of law, so Xeno-
phon, an Athenian residing in the Peloponnese, might naturally
employ the same means of making himself understood to foreign
readers. In fact, we seein Xenophon, more than in any of his
contemporaries, a first approximation to the common dialect
(κοινὴ διάλεκτος) which became afterwards the universal language
of Greece. ‘The selfish, unpatriotic character of the man has
deprived his language of any national individuality of colouring,
and thus, although many of the later writers in particular have
commended Xenophon’s style as the perfection of Attic Greek
—calling him the Attic muse, the Attic bee, and so forth’—
there is more of critical accuracy in the remark of Helladius,
that ‘it is not a matter of wonder that a man like Xeno-

1 Dionysius Hal. De precip. histor. IV. p. 777, Reiske: Hevopav μὲν γὰρ
Ἡροδότου ζηλωτὴς ἐγένετο κατ᾽ ἀμφοτέρους τοὺς χαρακτῆρας, τόν Te πραγματικὸν καὶ
τὸν λεκτικόν.

2 Diog. Laert. II. § 57. Suidas, s.v. Ξενοφῶν. Comp. Cicero, Orat. 9, 32, 19, 62.

200 XENOPHON AND CTESIAS.

phon, who spent his time in military service and in intercourse
with foreigners, should occasionally adulterate his mother-
tongue; on which account no one should consider him as an
authority in Atticism.”’

δ g. It seems desirable to mention in connexion with Xeno-
phon a contemporary Greek historian, who also took service
with the Persians, but, being on the winning side at the battle
of Cynaxa, had an opportunity of writing about the country
from observation and documents, instead of drawing on his ima-
gination for a romance like the Cyropedia. Crxsias of Cnidus,
the son of Ctesiochus or Ctesarchus, was brought up to the
profession of medicine, of which Cnidus was one of the regular
seats, and was probably induced by the promise of substantial
advantages to take up his residence at the Persian court, where
Greek physicians had been in great request since the time of
Democedes. He became the body-surgeon of Artaxerxes
Mnemon, and treated him for the wound which he received at
Cynaxa.” As it is stated that he returned to his native country
in B. c. 398, after seventeen years residence in Persia,® he must
have taken service with Artaxerxes in B.c. 415. It was pro-
bably after he was again settled at Cnidus that he drew up, in
Ionic Greek, according to the old rule, the works for which he
had obtained the materials during his sojourn in the east.
These were: (1.) A history of Persia (Περσικά) in twenty-three
books, derived from the royal archives (διφθεραὶ βασιλικαί). The
first six books treated of the great Assyrian monarchy. The
remainder of the work carried the history of Persia down to
the year B.c. 599. Besides some fragments in the more recent
writers, an extract from the later books has been preserved by
Photius.’ Whatever may have been the faults of Ctesias,’ it is
much to be regretted that we have lost this early contribution
to oriental history. (2.) An account of India (᾿Ἰνδικά), ὁ. e.,
of the Punjab most probably. From this also we have an ex-

1 Helladius apud Phot. Cod. CCLXXIX. p, 1589., Hoeschel.

.2 Xenoph, Anab. 1. 8, § 26. 3 Diodor. XIV. τό.

4 Strabo, XIV. p. 656. Diodor. XIV. 46. 5 Cod. LXXII.

6 See the passages quoted and examined by Babr, Ctesie Cnidii Reliquie,
Francof. 1824, pp. 35 sqq.; and for the strictures on his Ἰνδικά, οἵ, Miiller, in
Didot’s collection of the fragments, p.

WORKS OF CTESIAS. 201

tract in Photius. As the materials were probably derived from
Persian information, that is, at second hand, it was not more
authentic than the accounts given us in Herodotus, though
perhaps it entered into greater details. His other works were:
(3.) A coasting-voyage of Asia (Περίπλους ᾿Ασίας) ;' (4.) On the
tributes of Asia (περὶ τῶν κατὰ τὴν ᾿Ασίαν φόρων) 3 (5.) On
mountains (περὶ ὀρῶν) ;* and (6.) On rivers (περὶ ποταμῶν). A
reference in Galen’ has led to the inference that Ctesias also left
some medical works, of which, however, there are no traces ; and
not even the titles have been preserved. The style of Ctesias
is highly commended by Demetrius Phalereus*® and Photius’, and
his diction is compared with that of Xenophon by Dionysius of
Halicarnassus.*

We shall see in a future chapter’ that Arrian took. the
parallel publications of Xenophon and Ctesias as the models for
his principal works, writing his Epictetus, his Anabasis, and his
treatise on hunting in imitation of Xenophon, and in the Attic
dialect ; but making Ctesias his copy, and the Ionic dialect his
diction, in the treatise on India, and also following Ctesias in
his Periplus.

1 Steph. Byz. s.vv. Κοσύτη, Σίγυνος.
2 It is supposed by Miiller that this work was only an extract from the Περσικά.

8 Two books are mentioned Plut. De flwviis, 21. 4 Id. ἐδ. το.
5 V. p. 652, 1. 51, ed. Basil. 6 De Elocutione, ὃ 218.
7 Cod. LXXTI.

8 De Comp. Verb. το, p. 53. Reiske: ἡ δέ ye τοῦ Κνιδίου συγγραφέως Κτησίου
[Aégts] καὶ ἡ τοῦ Σωκρατικοῦ Ξενοφῶντος ἡδέως μὲν [obyxerra] ws ἔνι μάλιστα, οὐ
μὴν καλῶς γε ἐφ᾽ ὅσον ἔδει.

. 93. Below, chapter LV. § 2.

202

CHAPTER XXXIX.
PLATO.

§ 1. Importance of Plato’s writings even in a literary point of view. § 2. Life of
Plato. § 3. His political character and conduct. § 4. His literary relations to
his contemporaries and predecessors.- ὃ 5. Why he wrote in dialogues. ὃ 6.
Chronological order and scientific arrangement of his works. § 7. Plato’s dia-
lectics. ὃ 8. His ethical system. ὃ 9. His physical speculations. ὃ 10, Pecu-
liarities and excellences of his style.

§ 1. bch year 429 8.0. is distinguished by two events of the

greatest importance in regard to the literary glory
and political power of Athens. On the 21st of May in that
year the city gave birth to the most illustrious writer in all the
catalogue of Attic authors, and in the following autumn the
great statesman Pericles died at an advanced age, after having
administered the affairs of his country in peace and war for
forty years. By the latter event Athens lost her best hope of
continuing that sovereignty, which took its rise in the glories of
the Persian war, and was dissipated by the treason or incapacity
of those who took the place of Pericles at the head of the
government. By the former she became the founder of a
literary empire far more extensive and durable than any which
she could have established by the aid of her hoplites and triremes ;
for there can be little doubt that the higher culture of Europe,
since the days of Plato, has been directly or indirectly the re-
presentative of that moral and intellectual philosophy, of which
the teaching and writings of this great Athenian were the first
definite expression.’ The place which Plato occupies among
the leaders of human thought, the multifarious relations which
connect his speculations and criticisms with those of his pre-

1 Mr. Archer Butler, in his able and eloquent Lectures on the History of Ancient
Philosophy (vol. II. p. 1), says that Plato’s philosophy ‘whether regarded in itself,
or with reference to its influence upon the history of reflective man, rises before us
in all the dignity of the mightiest and most permanent monument ever erected by
unassisted human thought exercised upon the human destinies.’

IMPORTANCE OF PLATO’S WRITINGS. 203

_decessors, and with the Jong series of his successors down to the
present time, and the many forms in which Platonism is still
an influential element in the religious and moral theories of
Europe, would seem to indicate that a review of his writings
would be a more appropriate subject for a separate treatise than
for a chapter in the literary history of Greece. Fortunately,
however, we are not required or expected on the present
occasion, to deal with any of those subjects which have given a
lasting and ever-present importance to the views which were
originally expounded in the Academy. It is our business merely
to tell who Plato was, what were the nature and development
of his literary activity, and what were the leading characteristics
of his genius as a writer. These points, and these only, we
shall be able to discuss satisfactorily within the limits imposed
upon us by the present work.’

But even setting aside philosophy, and regarding Plato’s
writings merely from a literary point of view, it would be
difficult to over-estimate his importance. We have seen that
Socrates, who introduced the great revolution in philosophy, did
not himself leave behind him any literary memorials of those
discussions which he carried on so perpetually in the streets of
Athens. And the same remark applies to the imperfect So-
cratic schools. For whatever may have been the value of the
Cynical or Cyrenaical systems, as partially representing the
moral philosophy of Socrates, and whatever may have been the
merits of the Megaric school, as an exponent of his dialectics,
the leaders of these movements have no important position in
the literature of Greece. We are obliged to learn what we
know of them from scattered notices in various authors, or from
the reviews which Plato has left us in the form of dialogues.
It was in this, as in almost every effort of creative genius. The
thought struggles for the literary expression. Great teachers
go about among their fellow-men. They give oral instruction ;
they awaken dormant ideas; they do and suffer. But their

1 The author is to a certain extent prepared for this task by the more general
survey of Plato’s philosophy which he contributed to the Penny Cyclopedia in 1840,
Art. Plato, a paper to which he presumes a tacit reference in the present chapter ;
for the subject and the writer being the same, even an occasional repetition of his
own words has been inevitable.

204 PLATO.

influence is either confined to their own generation, and be-
comes for posterity nearly as though it had never been; or it
finds some man of literary genius, who casts the preacher’s
thoughts in his own mould, and gives them a permanent form,
and an indelible expression. This constitutes the literary im-
portance of Plato. We should have known from Xenophon
who Socrates was, and, in fact, the nature of his teaching. But
we owe it to Plato that his ideas, or rather, the thoughts which
he awakened, have been made the germ of one of the grandest
systems of speculation that the world has ever seen, and that
they have been conveyed to us in literary compositions, which
are unequalled in refinement of conception, or in vigour and
gracefulness of style.

§ 2. According to the most definite and consistent accounts,
Pxiato was born on the 7th day of Thargelion in Ol. 87, 3, in
the archonship of Apollodorus, that is, according to our reckon~
ing, on the 21st May, 429 3B.c.; and his admirers used long
afterwards to keep the anniversary of his birthday, which was
also the natal feast of the Delian Apollo. His lineage was one
of the noblest at Athens, for he traced his descent on the
mother’s side to the family of Solon and Codrus. His father
was Ariston, the son of Aristocles, and it is stated that Plato
was originally called after his grandfather, his ordinary designa-
tion, which was not uncommon among the Athenians at that
time, being a surname derived from his broad chest or his
expansive forehead, or, as some have imagined, from the breadth
of his style, whatever may be the meaning of that phrase.
When he changed his name is not known. But if modern
scholars have rightly adopted the opinion of Diogenes and the
old grammarians,' that Aristophanes in his Ecclesiazuse ridicules
Plato’s proposal for a community of property and wives, and
that the philosopher is directly alluded to in that play and the
Plutus, which were acted in 392 and 388 B.c., under the con-
temptuous diminutive Aristyllus, it would seem that the name

1 Morgenstern, Commentatio de Republica Platonis, pp. 73, seqq. Meineke,
* Historia Critica Comicorum Grecorum, pp. 287, seqq. The authorities quoted are
Diog. Laért. III. 23, Aristoph. Zecles. 646, Plut. 313, Eustath. p. 989, Herodian,
apud Etym. M. p. 142, F: ᾿Αρίστυλλος : ὄνομα παρὰ ᾿Αριστοφάνει, εἴρηται δὲ
ὑποκοριστικῶς δ᾽ Δριστοκλῆς. Cf. Fischer, ad Weller. IL. p. 33.

LIFE OF PLATO. 205

by which he is now known had either not been adopted, or was
not his familiar appellation at the time when, as we shall see,
he wrote his most important works. Some of Plato’s relatives
were very well known men. Crritias, the leader of the tyran-
nical oligarchy at Athens, was a cousin of his mother’s, and her
brother Charmides fell fighting by the side of Critias in the
struggle with Thrasybulus in the Peirzus. It has been gene-
rally supposed that Glaucon and Adeimantus, who play a pro-
minent part in the great dialogue of the Republic, were Plato’s
brothers, who are known to have borne those names ; but
C. F. Hermann' has made it probable that these interlocutors
belonged to an earlier generation; and the following may be
accepted as the most probable representation of the philosopher’s
family, and of his descent from the father of Solon :—

Execestides.

Solon. Dropides.

Antipho I. Aristocles I.
Critias I.
| | | | ἜΣ,
Callzschrus. Glauco I. Ἴ daughter. Aristo I. Pyrilampes,
Critias IT.
Charmides. | Glauco II. Antipho II.
Adeimantus I.

Perictione Aristo IT.

|
Prato (Aristocles II.), Glauco III., Aes hata αὐ 11.

It is more than probable that Solon and Dropides were not
brothers ; indeed Plato himself’ speaks of them merely as
intimate friends and connexions; and the claim of a direct
descent from Execestides was probably set up in later times,
when Plato’s admirers lost no opportunity of exalting the family
and person of a man whom they invested with almost godlike
attributes. On the other hand, an attempt has been made to

1 Platonische Philosophie, p. 24.
2 Timeus, p. 20, E., where Critias is made to say of Solon: ἣν μὲν οὖν οἰκεῖος
καὶ σφόδρα φίλος ἡμῖν Δρωπίδου τοῦ προπάππου, καθάπερ λέγει πολλάκις καὶ αὐτὸς

ἐν τῇ ποιήσει, and the Scholiast on the passage remarks: λέγονται γὰρ οἰκεῖοι καὶ
φίλοι.

206 PLATO.

deprive the Mother-city of the honour of having given birth to the
greatest man in her literary history. About the time of Plato’s —
birth, the Doric island of Agina was stript of its inhabitants, and
colonized by Athenian settlers (κληροῦχοι), among whom was
Aristophanes, the comic poet; and it has been stated’ that
Plato’s family had emigrated also. But this seems to be a
groundless tradition.

Connected as he was with the most distinguished family at
Athens, it is not surprising that Plato received the best educa-
tion which was then attainable in Greece ; and we are told that
he exhibited at an early age those qualities which raised him to
literary eminence. He learned the elements of reading and
writing (γράμματα) in the school of one Dionysius; Ariston,
an Argive wrestler, instructed him in gymnastic exercises ; his
music-masters were Draco of Athens, a pupil of the famous
Damon, and Metallus, or Megallus, of Agrigentum, whom some
identify with Megillus,? a Pythagorean writer on the theory of
numbers.’ It is stated that he contended successfully as a
wrestler in all the great games of Greece; and that he com-
posed dithyrambic, lyric, elegiac, tragic, and epic poems. These
are all lost ; for there can be no doubt that the thirty epigrams
in the Anthologia, which are attributed to him, are a later
fabrication. When we come to speak of his style we shall see
that he retained to the last the traces of that poetical fancy
which suggested the form of his earliest compositions. There
is no improbability in the statement that he also applied him-
self to painting, to which he refers in his dialogues in the
language of an amateur.*

We learn from Aristotle that Plato commenced his philo-
sophical studies under the guidance of the Heracleitean
Cratylus,’ who appears to have been a friend of Socrates. With

1 Diog. III. 3.

2 See Hermann, Platon. Philos. p. 99.

3 His work περὶ ἀριθμῶν is cited in the Theologumena Arithmetice, p. 27, Ast.,
and the quotation shows that Plato may have derived some of his arithinatieal
fancies from this source.

4 See for example Thectet. p. 208, E., Resp. X. p. 602, C.

* Aristot. Metaphys. I. c. 6: ἐκ νέου συγγενόμενος πρῶτον Κρατύλῳ καὶ ταῖς
Ἡρακλειτείαις δόξαις. Apuleius, De dogm. Plat. p.2: ‘et antea quidem Heracleiti
secta fuerat imbutus.’

LIFE OF PLATO. 207

what other philosophical systems he made acquaintance before
the year 410 B.c., when he first attached himself to Socrates, we
have no means of knowing. Diogenes, indeed,’ asserts that
Hermogenes, who maintains the Eleatic opinions in the dialogue
called the Cratylus, was Plato’s instructor in that philosophical
system ; but this is in all probability nothing more than an
inference from the statement about Cratylus, and from their
appearance in the same imaginary conversation. The circumstance
which produced the greatest influence on his subsequent studies
and pursuits, was undoubtedly the fact that he became one of the
regular associates or pupils of Socrates at the early age of nine-
teen or twenty, and did not leave his teacher until that martyr
of intellectual freedom, or literary and philosophical insubordi-
nation, drank the fatal cup of hemlock. He was present at the
trial,? and was prevented by illness only from attending his
master in his last moments.’ ΟΥ̓ his relations to his fellow
pupils we are not able to speak with any certainty. The
supposition that he was on unfriendly terms with Xenophon is
not supported by any definite evidence. He does not refer to
Aristippus and Antisthenes in favourable terms,’ but in most in-
stances he speaks respectfully of the other disciples of Socrates.
That the great teacher regarded Plato with kindly feelings of
esteem may he inferred from the only passage in which
Xenophon mentions our philosopher ; for he says that Socrates
retained a lively interest in Glauco on account of Charmides
and Plato.®
_ The execution of Socrates in May, B.c. 399, was immediately

1 171,6. 2 Apolog. p. 34, A.: οὑτοσὶ Πλάτων.

8 Phedo, p. 59, B: Πλάτων δὲ οἶμαι ἠσθένει.

4 There is a well-known treatise on this subject by A. Bockh, Commentatio Aca-
demica de Simultate, que Platonit cwm Xenophonte intercessisse fertwr. Berol.
1811.

5 The absence of Aristippus from the death-scene of Socrates is merely mentioned
in the Phedo, u.s. According to Demetrius, this was intended as a reproach (De
elocutione, c. 288): οἷον ws ὁ Πλάτων ᾿Αρίστιππον καὶ Κλεόμβροτον λοιδορῆσαι
θελήσας ἐν Αἰγίνῃ ὀψοφαγοῦντας δεδεμένου Σωκράτους ᾿Αθήνησιν ἐπὶ πολλὰς ἡμέρας
καὶ μὴ διαπλεύσαντας ὡς τὸν ἑταῖρον καὶ διδάσκαλον. Plato manifestly glances at
Aristippus in the Philebus, pp. 53, C. 54, D., and at Antisthenes in the Sophistes,
pp. 251, B., 259, Ὁ. See above, p. 175.

6 Xen. Mem. 111, 6,§ 1: Σωκράτης δὲ εὔνους dv αὐτῷ διά τε Kapplinv τὸν
Γλαύκωνος καὶ διὰ Πλάτωνα.

208 PLATO.

followed by the retirement from Attica of those who had most
warmly attached themselves to his person; and Eucleides, who
had been one of those who attended the philosopher in his last
moments, opened his house at Megara as an asylum for those
who found it no longer safe to stay at Athens. Here Plato
resided for some time, and his dialogues show that he availed
himself of his intercourse with Eucleides to make himself
thoroughly acquainted with that combination of Eleatic and
Socratic doctrines which is known as the Megaric philosophy.
He afterwards proceeded to Cyrene, on a visit to the mathema-
tician Theodorus, who was also a friend of Socrates. It is
worthy of remark that, while he professes to derive from a written
report by Eucleides the three connected dialogues known as the
Theetetus, the Sophistes, and the Politicus, the scene of which
is laid at Athens, immediately before the trial of Socrates,
Theodorus is represented as being present at all three conver-—
sations, and in the first of the three advocates the doctrines of Pro-
tagoras, in opposition to the searching criticisms of the Athenian
philosopher. From Cyrene Plato is said to have travelled to
Egypt, where we are told that he spent thirteen years in the
study of all that the priests could teach him,’ and even in
Strabo’s time the house, in which Plato and his companion
Eudoxus had lodged, was exhibited among the things worth
seeing at Heliopolis.” This journey to Egypt is also vouched
for by Cicero,’ and it is not im itself improbable that he might
have taken the opportunity while resident at Cyrene of making
a tour in that wonderful country. But, independently of the
known date of his return to Athens and of his journeys to
Sicily, it is not at all likely that he spent there any consider-
able time, and it is absurd to suppose that his residence extended
to so long a period as thirteen years. His writings give no
evidence of such a familiarity with Egyptian usages as would
have resulted from such a lengthened sojourn.* And it is not
improbable that the subsequent cultivation of his philosophy at
Alexandria led to exaggerations on the subject. Still more

1 Lactant. Instit. IV. 2. Clemens Alex. Protrept. p. 46, A.

2 Strabo, p. 806, C.

3 De Republ. I. το.

4 See Professor Thompson’s note on Butler’s Lectwres, II. p. 15.

LIFE OF PLATO. 209

apocryphal are the stories about Plato’s intercourse with the
Magi of Persia in their own country. He might have obtained
some knowledge of their dualism without travelling into the
heart of Asia. And the adoption of Platonic ideas by the early
Christians was quite a sufficient inducement for them to invent
or believe the story that he had borrowed some of these coin-
cident views from the Divine revelation of the East. Plato’s
Italian and Sicilian voyages are sufficiently authenticated.
Whether we acquiesce, with Dr. Bentley’ and Mr Grote, in
the genuineness of the epistles attributed to Plato, or, with
Ast* and other critics, pronounce them to be spurious, we cannot
deny what one of these latter writers* admits, that ‘they are in
all probability the work of comparatively early authors, who
may have been exactly informed of the historical particulars
referred to in them.’ Now these epistles minutely describe
Plato’s intercourse with the despots of Syracuse, Dionysius and
his son, and with Dion the uncle of the latter. It appears that
he paid three several visits to Sicily—the first in B.c. 389,
when, having offended the elder Dionysius, he was, at the
instigation of that tyrant, sold as a slave by Pollis the Spartan
ambassador, in whose ship he was returning to Greece, but was
redeemed from slavery by Anniceris of Cyrene, one of the
scholars of Aristippus. Notwithstanding this treatment, he was
induced in B.c. 367 to pay a second visit to Syracuse, at the
request of Dion, who wished to secure his advice and instruc-
tions for Dionysius the younger. This hopeless and thankless
office was soon abandoned, for Dion was banished; and Plato
returned to Greece after a four months’ sojourn in Sicily.
His third and last visit, for the purpose of reconciling the uncle
and nephew, was undertaken in B.c. 361, and he escaped from
a place, which had become both dangerous and disagreeable, at
some time in the following year. The interest which he took
_in Dion, is perhaps also indicated by the fact that Speusippus,
Plato’s nephew, who had been his companion on his second

1 Remarks on Freethinking (in Randolph’s Enchiridion Theologicwm, II., pp.
458, seqq.).

2 History of Greece, X., p. 603.

3 Platon’s Leben und Schriften, pp. 504, sqq.

* Brandis, Handbuch, I1., p. 145.

Vou. II. P

216° PLATO.

journey to Sicily, joined as a volunteer the body of adventurers
by whose aid Dion, in 8.0. 357, succeeded in establishing himself
at Syracuse. With the death of that chieftain in B.c. 353,
Plato’s dealings with Sicily came to an end. His visit to
Magna Grecia, in the south of Italy, was probably contem-
porary with the first of his Sicilian journeys. He had no
doubt gained some knowledge of the philosophy of Pytha-
goras, and become familiar with the other Italian schools of
philosophy at a much earlier period. As Philolaus had resided
at Thebes where Simmias and Cebes heard him,’ and as Eche-
crates was at Phlius about the time of the death of Socrates,’
Plato had abundant opportunities of making acquaintance with
the leading Pythagoreans of the day, without going to Italy for
the purpose. Still he might have felt some temptation, when
in Sicily, to extend his travels to Tarentum, where he had the
advantage of making himself personally known to Archytas and
Eurytus, and learning from them many particulars of those spe-
culations which entered so largely into his own system. How
great was his interest in this development of philosophy may be
learned from the statement that Plato induced Dion to buy for a
large sum of money the treatise in which Philolaus for the first
time expounded the doctrines of Pythagoras.’ It has been conjec-
tured,* on the strength of a passage in the Theetetus,’ that
Plato travelled to Ephesus, the birth-place of the Heracleitean
philosophy in order to converse with the representatives of a
school in which he had received very ample instructions from
Cratylus, and a tradition speaks of his having been in Caria.°
The journeys which we have described, with the exception of
the voyage to Cyrene and the probable visit to Egypt, were
undertaken after his return from Megara to Athens, which
took place about four years after the death of Socrates, that is,
not later than B.c. 395. There can be no doubt that his most
celebrated works saw the light after this time, and in his native

1 Cicero, De Finibus, Μ΄. 29. Diog. Laért. VIII. 46.

3 Phedo,p. 57 A. Cicero (De Finibus, u.s.), and Valerius Maximus (VIII,
ἡ, ext. 3), consider Echecrates as a teacher of Plato.

3 Bockh, Philolaos, pp. 18, sqq.

4 By Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 23.

5 p. 179 E. ὁ Plutarch, De dem. Socr. p. 579 B.

POLITICAL CHARACTER OF PLATO. 211

city. According to Cicero he carried on his literary labours
till the day of his death," and except when interrupted by such
absences from home as the journeys to Sicily which we have
enumerated, he was engaged as a public lecturer on philosophy
- throughout the latter half of his life. His lectures were at first
delivered in the garden of the Academia, to the north-west of
Athens, and afterwards in a neighbouring garden between the
Academia and Colonus which he had purchased; and it has
been observed, that these gardens ‘have left a proof of their
celebrity in the structure of language, which has derived from
them a term now common to all places of instruction”? En-
gaged in these philosophical and literary pursuits, Plato died at
the advanced age of eighty-one, in Ol. 108, 1. B.c. 347. He
was succeeded in his school by his nephew Speusippus, though
he had left Heracleides of Pontus as his representative at the
Academy when he took Speusippus with him on his second journey
to Sicily. Athenzeus* and Plutarch‘ give us counter lists of tyrants
and good statesmen who received part of their training from
Plato, and there were few eminent men of the day who are not
stated to have been among the number of his hearers.

§ 3. This general survey of the life of Plato would be in-
complete without some inquiry respecting his political character
and conduct, which have been made the subject of sharp criti-
cisms. Niebuhr has said,’ that ‘ Plato may have been pre-
judiced against his native city, in its constitutional form of
government, by the warm feelings of his youthful heart, but it
is not the less true that, if so, he was not a good citizen’ We
have mentioned in a previous chapter,’ that it was a prominent
characteristic of the post-Socratic philosophers, to reject the old
forms of civil polity and to seek an approximation, at least, to
an aristocracy of talent and knowledge. The state of the case
in regard to Plato in particular, has been adequately exhibited
by an eminent English scholar,’ who has compared the state-

1 De Senectute, c. 5. 2 Butler’s Lectwres, IT., p. 18.

3 XT. p. 508, sqq. 4 Adv. Colot. p. 1126.

5 Kleine Schriften, p. 479. Philological Museum, A Ῥ. 494.

® See chapter XX XVII. § 2.

7 The Rev. W. H. Thompson, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of
Cambridge, in his lectures on the Gorgias, delivered in 1854. By the kindness of
Professor Thompson we have been permitted to quote from his manuscript notes.

Es

212 PLATO.

ments of Plato himself, if he was the writer of the seventh
Platonic epistle, with the feelings and principles so clearly dis-
played in the Gorgias and Republic, which, it is with reason
contended, must have been composed soon after Plato’s first
return to Athens, in B.c. 395.’ In that elaborate epistle, Plato
is made to describe the successive disappointments which pre-
vented him from taking a part in politics; his disgust with the
oligarchs; his still greater indignation when the leaders of the
restored democracy procured the condemnation of his friend
Socrates ; and how at last he arrived at the conviction that all
existing forms of government were radically wrong; and that
the crimes and misery of mankind would never come to an end
until either the highest class of philosophic thinkers should step
into the seats of power, or until the existing rulers should, by
some divine miracle, become endued with a true philosophic
insight.2 The sentiments thus expressed by Plato, or put into
his mouth, find their echo most especially in the Gorgias and
Republic ; and while the latter elaborates the theoretical recon-
struction of the political fabric, the former may be considered
as an ᾿Απολογία Πλάτωνος, an exposition of his reasons for pre-
ferring the contemplative to the active, the philosophic to the
rhetorical life. The manner in which Plato performed the
duties of citizenship on his first return, his services as a soldier
in the battles of Tanagra, Corinth, and Delium,’ possibly his
cultivation of rhetoric, with a view to his appearance as a
public orator,—all this may have induced his friends to hope
that he was reconciled to the existing government of Athens,

1 It appears to us that the description in Resp. 496 B. of the ὑπὸ φυγῆς κατα-
ληφθὲν γενναῖον καὶ εὖ τεθραμμένον ἦθος κ.τ.λ., is a description of his own case, which
Plato would hardly have written, except at a period shortly subsequent to his
return from Megara. ξ

2 Epist. VII., pp. 324 B., sqq. See especially the end of the paragraph, p.
326 A. Β,

8 Diog. Laért. III. 8. lian, V.H., VII. 14.

4 Professor Thompson remarks: ‘The intimate knowledge which the author of
the Phedrus displays of the writings of the leaders of both the great schools of
oratory, the Attic and the Sicilian, may lead to the conjecture that he had at one
period of his life studied rhetoric with a view to its public practice; and it is hard
to doubt thai, under moderately favourable circumstances, his success as a speaker
would have been brilliant.’

POLITICAL CONDUCT OF PLATO. 213

and was willing to take an active part in the administration of
affairs ;* and no doubt many a well-wisher among the democrats
gave him warnings, like those which Callicles, in the Gorgias,
addresses to Socrates.? To show that his dislike of the existing
constitution was unconquerable, and to justify his abstinence
from political action, he could not have taken a better method
than that which is indicated in the supposed conversation with
the veteran rhetorician of Leontini and his two admirers,—
whereas the Republic fully developes those views of the neces-
sity of a philosophical government, founded on the principles of
eternal justice, which he would hold up to the politicians of
the day as the best proof of the irreconcilable hostility between
his views and those on which statesmen of the Callicles type
professed to act.* That the Gorgias and the Republic may be
safely referred to the time when Plato, after his first return to
Athens, had to consider seriously whether he could consistently
take a part in the public affairs of his own country, has been
argued on the following grounds: ‘The warning of Callicles,
and the prophecy of his own death, put into the mouth of
Socrates,* could not have appeared in a dialogue written before
B.C. 399, and the reference of the Gorgias exclusively to Athenian
life leads to the conclusion that it must have been written at
Athens, and therefore after the writer’s return in B.c. 395.
Again, the statement in Athenzus,’ that Gorgias himself read

1 That these ideas on the part of his friends might have been very justifiable is
clear from his own expressions (Hp. VII. p. 325 A.) in regard to his feelings on
the re-establishment of the democracy by Thrasybulus : πάλιν βραδύτερον μὲν, εἷλκε
δέ με ὅμως, ἡ περὶ τὸ πράττειν τὰ κοινὰ Kal τὰ πολιτικὰ ἐπιθυμία.

2 Gorgias, p. 521 C.

3 Compare the Republic, VI. pp. 488 sqq. with the passage referred to above,
p- 212, note 2.

4 Gorgias, p. 521 D: οὐδέν ye ἄτοπον εἰ ἀποθάνοιμι. The idea of the helplessness
of the philosopher, when obliged to defend himself in a court of justice, is beauti-
fully worked up in a well-known passage of the Theetetus (p. 174 B. sqq.), which must
have been published soon after Plato’s return from Megara, and therefore accord-
ing to Mr, Thompson’s view, at the same epoch as the Gorgias. He say chat he
had these views at the time of his first journey to Italy and Sicily: Zp, VII. p.
326 8.

5 Athen. XI. p. 505: λέγεται δὲ ὡς καὶ dTopylas αὐτὸς ἀναγνοὺς τὸν ὁμώνυμο
αὑτῷ διάλογον πρὸς τοὺς συνήθεις ἔφη, Ὥς καλῶς οἷδε Πλάτων ἰαμβίζειν---ἄλλοι δέ
φασιν ὡς ἀναγνοὺς ὁ Topyias τὸν Πλάτωνος διάλογον πρὸς τοὺς παρόντας εἶπεν ὅτι
οὐδὲν τούτων οὔτε εἶπεν οὔτε ἤκουσε.

214 PLATO.

the dialogue, and the reasonable inference’ that the great rhe-
torician died shortly before 8.0. 388, oblige us to conclude that
the dialogue was written before Plato started for Sicily in B.c.

389, which will fix the date of this treatise approximately for
some time within the limits of Plato’s first residence at Athens
after the death of Socrates. With regard to the Republic, if,
as we have mentioned above, the Ecclesiazuse of Aristophanes,
with its commonwealth of women, is a satirical attack on
Plato’s speculation, it will follow that the first sketch, at all
events, of that long dialogue, was written and known to the
public before B.c. 392, and this date for the Republic will affect
that of the Gorgias also. Accordingly, in the first three years
after his return to Athens, Plato had not only formed for him-
self, but he had communicated to the world, a determination to
take no part in the public business at Athens. The principles
of the literary aristocracy, to which we have referred in a pre-
vious chapter,’ were carried out by Plato to their fullest extent.
But finding no probability that these principles would ever take
root and germinate at Athens, he was content to do his best to
instil his own convictions into the minds of those, who must
sooner or later become politicians, and confine his practical
politics to a share in the legislation of other states, or to an
attempt to philosophize the minds of the adventurers who had
made themselves masters of the fairest Greek city in Sicily.

§ 4. The position which Plato thus assumed, as a writer
rather than a speaker or practical politician, was in accordance
with his whole career as a literary man, in the strictest sense
of the term. He was not only a writer himself, but he was
one of the earliest collectors of books,’ and was professedly a
reader and reviewer of the writings of others. We have already
seen how much pains he had taken to make himself acquainted
with all existing systems of philosophy. ‘On the death of
Socrates,’ says Cicero,’ ‘ Plato first went to Egypt to add to
his stock of knowledge, and afterwards travelled to Italy and
Sicily in order to learn thoroughly the doctrines of Pythagoras ;

1 Foss supposes from various data that Gorgias was born about B.c. 496, and
died about B.c. 388.

2 Above, chapter XX XVII. § 2

3 Proclus ὧν Tim. I. p. 28. Diog. VIII. 15. 4 De Republ. I. το.

LITERARY RELATIONS OF PLATO. 215

he had a great deal of intercourse with Archytas of Tarentum,
and with Timzus the Locrian, and procured the commentaries
of Philolaus; and as Pythagoras then enjoyed a great reputa-
tion in that part of the world, Plato applied himself to the
society of Pythagorean philosophers and to the study of their
system. Accordingly, as he was devotedly attached to Socrates,
and wished to put everything into his mouth, he interwove the
elegance and subtlety of the Socratic mode of arguing with the
obscurity of Pythagoras and the many branches of learning
which the Pythagorean philosophy included.” This account,
though containing much that is true, is very far from describing
the extent and variety of Plato’s studies or the use which he
made of his acquired knowledge. Of the importance of the
Socratic and Pythagorean elements in Plato’s philosophy there
can be no doubt. But he transmuted all that he touched into
his own forms of thought and language, and there was no branch
of speculative literature which he had not mastered. LEpi-
charmus, the great comedian, who was also a renowned Pytha-
gorean philosopher, was one of his favourite authors, and Plato
may be said to have fulfilled his prophecy,—that some future
writer would confute and overthrow all opponents, by adopting
his sayings and clothing them in a different dress.’ Sophron,
the mimographer, was constantly in his hand, and he is said to
have had a copy of the Mimes under his pillow when he died.’
He was also familiar with Empedocles,*® who stands half way
between the Pythagoreans and the Eleatics, and who, as Dr.
Thirlwall suggests,* may probably be regarded as the predecessor
of Plato, in his eclectic view of philosophy. Besides these
Sicilian writers, Plato was thoroughly conversant with all the

1 Above p. 57, note. That Epicharmus the poet and Epicharmus the philosopher
were the same person is fully shown by Clinton, Fasti Hellenici II. p. XXXVI.
note g. Plato sometimes quotes Epicharmus by name, and in one passage (Thecetet.
152 E.) names him and Homer as the two chief poets, the one of comedy and the
other of tragedy.

2 Quintil. Znst. Orat. I. το, ὃ 17.

3 The doctrines of Empedocles are directly referred to in the Sophistes, p. 242 D.
G. Hermann recognizes the very words of this philosopher in the Phedrus, p. 246,
B.C., and has endeavoured to restore them to their original form (Opusec. VII. p.
106). It is doubtful whether Empedocles or Anaxagoras is alluded to in the Lysis,
p- 214 B. See Heindorf and Stallbaum on the passage.

* History of Greece, IL. p. 139, note.

216 PLATO.

works of Philolaus, Archytas, Parmenides, Zeno, Heracleitus,
Anaxagoras, and Protagoras ; whatever was committed to writing
by the Sophists had come into his hands; he did not neglect
his own contemporaries of the Socratic school; and many of
his dialogues may be regarded as reviews or controversial tracts,
referring to the published opinions of such writers as Aristippus,
Antisthenes, and Eucleides. It would, however, be a great
mistake to suppose that because Plato was so actively cognizant
of the speculations of his predecessors and contemporaries, he has
therefore forfeited his claim to be considered as a man of ori-
ginal genius. If this were the case there could be no such
thing as literary originality. Every man who writes gives an
expression, under a new form and with new developments, to
thoughts which have been growing up im the society to which
hz belongs. Every age leans upon the preceding age, and the
man of most creative genius can only work with the materials
committed to him.’ It would be as preposterous to deny the
originality of Shakspere because his plays derived their plots
from histories, poems, and novels, as to suppose that Plato
thought and wrote only at second-hand. We have only to com-
pare the dialogues of Plato with the tame appearances of
Socrates in the Memoirs of Xenophon, if we wish to see how
much is due to the dramatic power, poetic fancy, analytical
skill, and exhaustive learning of the former. Fully conceding
the postulate, that Socrates first awakened the idea of science,
and laid the foundations of dialectics, on which a main part of
the philosophy of Plato was built up,’ and recognizing the im-
portance of the great ideas which Plato had learned from the
Eleatics, the Heracleiteans, and the Pythagoreans, we must still
claim for him the master-mind which extracted from all these
systems their common truths, rejected their specific errors, and
from the whole elaborated and expounded, in the finest language
ever spoken by man, the great theory of the opposition between
the law and the facts, between the general and the particular,
between the objects of reflexion and the objects of the senses,

1 Arstne Houssaye has well remarked: ‘le plus souvent le génie n’est qu'un
écho bien disposé.’
2 See this distinctly stated by Aristotle, Metaph. XII. 4, § 5.

THE DIALOGUES. _ 217

between the world of abstract thought and the world of visible
phenomena.

§ 5. With the exception of the epistles, if any of these are
genuine, and the philosophical definitions, which are undoubt-
edly spurious, all the extant writings of Plato are in the form
of dialogues, and in all these dialogues, with the exception of
the Laws, Socrates is either an interlocutor, or in some way
interested in the conversation. In this species of composition
Plato was preceded by Alexamenus of Teos, and perhaps by
Epicharmus, Zeno of Elea, and others.’ Aristotle says:’ ‘ We
cannot deny the name of discourses and imitations to the
mimes of Sophron and the dialogues of Alexamenus of Teos,
which were the first written of the Socratic dialogues.’ With
regard to Zeno, we have the more doubtful statement of Dio-
genes:* ‘they say that Zeno of Elea was the first to write
dialogues ; and a mere inference from Aristotle’s description of
‘the answering and questioning Zeno.’* Whatever may have
been the force of precedent, there can be no doubt that Plato
was led to employ the form of dialogues from the nature of the
case. The mere fact that he adopted the dialectics of Socrates
and the Eleatics is sufficient to account for his exhibiting his
reasonings in accordance with that method of questioning by
which his great teacher and the school of Parmenides had
tested the doctrines and opinions of those with whom they came
into contact. A professor of dialectics was, by the nature of the
case, a professor of conversation ; the verb διαλέγεσθαι means
simply ‘ to converse,’ and the common word to denote conversa-
tion, namely, διάλεξις, is used by Aristophanes to denote

1 The following writers of dialogues were contemporary with Plato: Aischines,
Antisthenes, Eucleides, and Phedo.

3 Athenzus XI. p. 505 B.: αὐτὸς (Πλάτων) τοὺς διαλόγους μιμητικῶς γράψας, ὧν
τῆς ἰδέας οὐδ᾽ αὐτὸς εὑρετής ἐστιν. πρὸ γὰρ αὐτοῦ τοῦθ᾽ εὗρε τὸ εἶδος ὁ ΤΤήϊος ᾿Αλεξα-
μενός, ὡς Νικίας ὁ Νικαεὺς ἱστορεῖ περὶ Σωτίων. ᾿Αριστοτέλης δὲ ἐν τῷ περὶ ποιητῶν
οὕτως γράφει" “ οὐκοῦν οὐδὲ ἐμμέτρους τοὺς καλουμένους Σ ώφρονος Μίμους μὴ φῶμεν
εἶναι λόγους καὶ μιμήσεις, ἢ τοὺς ᾿Αλεξαμενοῦ τοῦ Τηΐου τοὺς πρώτους γραφέντας
τῶν Σωκρατικῶν διαλόγων.᾽ Where Bergk reads τοὺς πρότερον. On the general sub-
ject see Brandis, in Niebuhr’s Rhein Mus. I. 120.

8 TIL. 47, p. 215 A. Casaub. : διαλόγους τοίνυν φασὶ πρῶτον γράψαι Ζήνωνα τὸν
᾿Ελεάτην.

4 Sophist. Elench. c. 20, § 2: ὁ ἀποκρινόμενος καὶ ὁ ἐρωτῶν Ζήνων.

218 PLATO.

‘dialectics’ or ‘logic’! The definition by -which Socrates,
according to Xenophon, reduces διαλέγεσθαι to its active form,
and supposes it to mean the apa or subdivision of things
according to their genera and species,’ is, of course, one of those
plays upon words which merely indicate the non-existence of
philological criticism among the Greeks. To examine and
cross-examine appeared to Socrates the only means of arriving
at the truth or confuting error, and to keep close to the ques-
tion was in the strictest sense of the term ‘ to argue διαλεκτικῶς.᾽3
The convenience of this method for an object such as that
which Plato proposed to himself is obvious.’ Wishing to review
and criticize the various systems of philosophy then current in
Greece, and also to test various opinions of political or social
import, no better plan could have occurred to him than that of
supposing their authors and advocates to meet with Socrates in
the course of his daily life at Athens, and submit their views,
with the best arguments which had been advanced in support of
them, to his searching elenchus. In this way, Plato, as the
anonymous reviewer, was enabled to substitute the well-known
person of Socrates for the conventional ‘we’ of our modern
critics, and instead of extracts from the works under review,
with inverted commas and other marks of quotation, which, in
this age of writing and printing, are expedients as convenient as
they are universal, he produced the living forms of the authors
themselves, or of some friendly Theodorus,’ who had said, or
was likely to say, a good word on their behalf. In this way,

1 Nub. 317: αἵπερ γνώμην καὶ διάλεξιν καὶ νοῦν ἡμῖν παρέχουσιν.
2 Mem. IV. 5, § 12: ἔφη δὲ καὶ τὸ διαλέγεσθαι ὀνομασθῆναι ἐκ τοῦ συνιόντας —
κοινῇ βουλεύεσθαι διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη τὰ πράγματα.
3 The words of Hudibras (I. 3, 1255 544.} accurately describe the dialecticprocess
‘ The quirks and cavils thou dost make
Are false and built upon mistake.
And I shall bring you with your pack
Of fallacies to elenchi back ;
And put your arguments in mood
And figure to be understood.
ΤΊ] force you: by right ratiocination
To leave your vitilitigation,
And make you keep to the question close,
And argue dialecticws.’
4 There is a modern justification of Plato’s method in Mr. Kingsley’s Phaethon,
2nd Edition, Cambridge, 1854.
5 Who undertakes the defence of Protagoras in the Theetet us.

ORDER OF PLATO’S WORKS. 219

too, Plato was able to gratify his own dramatic genius, and his
almost unrivalled power of keeping up an assumed character,
a power in which Shakspere alone can claim to be his equal.
The natural bent of a man, who transcribed Epicharmus' and
kept Sophron under his pillow,’ must have been strongly
towards this habit of impersonation, to say nothing of the
pleasure of doing that which we do easily and well; and if this
had not been the case, it would be difficult to show what other
method of controversy and literary or philosophical criticism
would have been available to him in an age when he stood
almost alone as a collector and possessor of books written by
his contemporaries.

§ 6. The chronological order of Plato’s works, and their
arrangement according to the subject matter, have occasioned a
good deal of discussion. There is another question connected
with this, namely, whether any and how many of the dialogues
attributed to him are not genuine. With regard to this latter
question, which must precede any inquiry as to the order of the
dialogues which really proceeded from Plato, we feel disposed
to agree with those who grant the critical passport to all but
certain of the minor works. The following will be either
received with doubt or rejected without hesitation ; the Axiochus
and Eryxias (sometimes attributed to the Socratic philosopher,
Aischines), the Epinomis (probably written by Philip of Opus),
the first and second Alcibiades (the latter attributed to Xeno-
phon), the first and second Hippias, the Theages, Ion, Anteraste,
Hipparchus, Minos, Cleitopho. On the other hand, we must
maintain, against Ast, the genuineness of the Laws, the Meno,
Euthydemus, Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Menexenus, Euthyphro,
Apology, and Crito. And we cannot consent even to enter
upon an argument with Socher as to the genuineness of the Par-
menides, Sophistes, and Politicus, which seem to us as undoubt-
edly Platonic as the Theetetus, or the Philebus.6 The earliest

1 Alcimus quoted by Diogenes (III. 18) says that Plato transcribed most of the
writings of Epicharmus. 2 Quintil. Znst. Orat. I. 10, § 17.

3 Socher, iiber Platon’s Schriften, Miinchen, 1820. These views have been partly
adopted or supported by Dr. Whewell in some interesting papers read before the
Cambridge Philosophical Society (Transactions, vol. IX. pt. 4, vol. X.p. 1). As
far as the Sophistes and Politicus are concerned, the question has been set at rest
by Professor Thompson in the elaborate is Sel to which we have already referred :
above, p. 175.

220 PLATO.

methodical arrangement of Plato’s dialectics is that of the
Tetralogies drawn up by Thrasyllus, a grammarian, who flou-
rished in the time of Tiberius.’ Of these nine Tetralogies there
are only three which are partially accurate in classification.
Thrasyllus could not avoid putting together the Theetetus,
Sophistes, and Politicus, but he spoils the connexion by prefix-
ing the Cratylus, instead of appending the Parmenides. With
similar want of judgment he makes the Cleitopho a preface to
the Republic, Timeus, and Critias, which are really connected.
There is a possible coherence in the Parmenides, Philebus,
Symposium, and Phedrus, which constitute his third class; but
this arrangement will not bear examination. In modern times
the most important classification of the dialogues is that which
was drawn up by the great philosophical theologian Schleier-
macher, who was the first to submit the whole of Plato’s works
to an acute and careful examination in regard to their coherency
and the connexion of thought which runs through them. He
divides them into three classes: (A) the elementary dialogues,
or those which contain the germs of all that follows, of logic as
the instrument of philosophy, and of ideas as its proper object ;
these are the Phedrus, Lysis, Protagoras, Laches, Charmides,
Euthyphro, and Parmenides ; to which Schleiermacher subjoins,
as an appendix, the Apology, Crito, Io, Hippias minor, Hip-
parchus, Minos, and Alcibiades II. (B) Progressive dialogues,
which treat of the distinction between philosophical and common
knowledge in their united application to the proposed and real
sciences, ethics, and physics; these are the Gorgias, Theetetus,
Meno, Euthydemus, Cratylus, Sophistes, Politicus, Symposium,
Phedo, and Philebus ; with an appendix containing the Theages,
Eraste, Alcibiades I., Menexenus, Hippias major, and Cleitopho.
(C) Constructive dialogues, in which the practical is completely
united with the speculative; these are the Republic, Timeus,
and Critias, with an appendix containing the Laws, the Epistles,

1 The following are the Tetralogies of Thrasyllus as given by Diogenes Laértius,
II. 56, p.221, Casaubon. I. Luthyphro, Apologia, Crito, Phedo. Τ1, Cratylus,
Thectetus, Sophista, Politicus. III. Parmenides, Philebus, Symposium, Phedrus.
IV. Alcibiades prior, Alcibiades alter, Hipparchus, Anteraste. V. Theages,
Charmides, Laches, Lysis. Vi. Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno. VII.
Hippias major, Hippias minor, Io, Menexenus. VIII. Cleitopho, Respublica,
Timeus, Critias. IX. Minos, Leges, Epinomis, Epistole.

ORDER OF PLATO’S WORKS. 221

&c. Without entering upon a criticism of this arrangement,
which is, as we conceive, in accordance neither with the chrono-
logical order of the dialogues, nor with the main divisions of
the subjects discussed in them; we will endeavour briefly to
ascertain the periods in Plato’s life at which the principal
dialogues were written, and the literary connexion of the more
important treatises with one another.’

It seems to us extremely unlikely that many works were
published by Plato during the lifetime of Socrates, or that he
composed at this time any of the more elaborate dialogues. It
has indeed been very generally assumed that the Phedrus ap-
peared at this epoch, and was in fact the first of his works.
We are much more disposed to accept the conclusion of
C. F. Hermann,’ that this dialogue belongs to the final period
in Plato’s literary career. Some of the reasons for this view
have been briefly summed up by an English scholar. They are
—(1) its Pythagorism ; (2) the multifarious learning displayed
in it—a learning of which there are few traces in his youthful

1 The most recent hypothesis with regard to the arrangement of Plato’s dialogues
is that of E. Munk (Die natiirliche ordnung der Platon. Schriften, Berlin, 1857),
who conceives that their natural order is that which is indicated by the age of
Socrates at the time when each conversation is supposed to have taken place:
thus the Parmenides is the first, because it introduces Socrates as a boy, and the
Phedo is the last, because it represents the closing scene in the philosopher’s life!
The following are his subdivisions :—

A. Socratic Cycle I. Socrates’ initiation as a philosopher, and his contests with
false wisdom (time of composition, 389—384).

1. Parmenides (time of action, 446). 2. Protagoras (434). 3. Charmides (432),
and Laches (421). 4. Gorgias (420). 5. lon, Hippias I., Cratylus, Euthydemus,
(420). 6. Symposium (417).

II. Socrates teaches the true wisdom (time of composition, 383—370).

1. Phedrus ; 2. Philebus; 3. Republic, Timeus and Critias (410).

III. Socrates proves the truth of his doctrines by a criticism of the antagonistic
opinions and by his death as a martyr (composed after 370).

1. Meno (405); 2. Thecetetus (on the day of Meletus’s accusation) ; 3. Sophis-
tes and Politicus (one day after the Thectetus) ; 4. Huthyphro (on the same day as
the Theetetus) ; 5. Apology (at the trial) ; 6. Crito (two days before the death of
Socrates) ; 7. Phedo (on the day of his death).

B. Platonic writings which do not belong to the Cycle. I. Juvenile Writings
(composed before the death of Socrates). 1. Alcibiades J.; 2. Lysis; 3. Hip-
pias II.

Il. Later Writings. 1. Menexenus (after 387) ; 2. Laws (begun about 367).

3 Platon. Philosophie, pp. 373 564.

8 Professor Thompson, note on Butler’s Lectwres, II. p. 44.

222 PLATO.

works ; (3) the maturity of its ethical views, contrasted with
the Socratic crudity of the Lysis, Protagoras, &c.; (4) the
clear exposition of the principles of philosophical method, and
the advanced views of the nature of ideas implied in the great
mythus; (5) the exquisite perfection of the Phedrus as a work
of literary art. The tradition, which assigns an early date to
the Phedrus, is possibly due to the fact that it was the first
book published by Plato, when he finally established himself as
a teacher in the Academy. The favourable notice of Isocrates,"
and the criticisms on Lysias,’ need occasion no difficulty. He
-may have entertained a higher opinion of the former than he
did when he wrote the Euthydemus, if the description of the
conceited rhetorician in that dialogue really refers to Isocrates ; *
and the importance attached to Lysias would be most appli-
cable to the time, when that orator enjoyed the Panhellenic
reputation consequent on his Olympiac speech. Now this was
in B.c. 388, just about the time when Plato, being ransomed
from his bondage, set up his school at Athens, and when Iso-
crates was in great repute. If any one of the extant dialogues
can claim to be really the first written, the Lysis is perhaps
the best entitled to this primogeniture. For there is not only
a distinct tradition to this effect,’ but the style and subject-
matter bear a stamp of juvenility and unpractised authorship.
Closely connected with this we have the Charmides and the
Laches ; and other short dialogues, if they are genuine, belong
to the same epoch ; such are the Hippias major, the Alcibiades I.,
and the Jo. After these, and perhaps shortly before the time
of the death of Socrates, we have two transition dialogues, in
which the Sophists are so fully exhibited, namely, the Proéa-

1 Phedrus, p. 279 A. 2 Thid. p. 234 D. sqq.

3 Euthydemus, p. 304 D.: ἀνὴρ οἰόμενος πάνυ εἶναι σοφός, τούτων Tis τῶν περὶ τοὺς
λόγους τοὺς εἰς τὰ δικαστήρια δεινῶν. When Plato wrote the Protagoras and
Euthydemus, it seems to have been his wish to contrast Socrates with those sophists,
and he might therefore take a less favourable view of Isocrates on that account, for
this rhetorician was a pupil of Protagoras.

4 Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, II. p. τοι. Mr. Grote (vol. X. p. ror) supposes that
the Olympiacus of Lysias and the Panegyricus of Isocrates were delivered at suc-
cessive Olympic festivals in B.c. 384 and 380 respectively.

5 Diog. Laért. ITT. 35: φασὶ δὲ καὶ Σωκράτην ἀκούσαντα τὸν Λύσιν ἀναγιγνώσκοντος
Πλάτωνος, Ἡρακλεῖς, εἰπεῖν, ὡς πολλά μου καταψεύδεται ὁ νεανίσκος.

ORDER OF PLATO’S WORKS. 223

goras and Euthydemus.' While he was at Megara, and very
soon after the death of Socrates, he probably published and
sent to Athens the Apology and the Crifo.2 When he returned
to Athens in B.c. 395, we conceive, for the reasons which we
have quoted from Professor Thompson, that he wrote the
Gorgias, and the first edition of the Republic. Being also fresh
from his instructive intercourse with Eucleides at Megara, he
most probably published at this time also the trilogy of
dialogues which are supposed to be narrated at that philosopher’s
‘house—namely, the Theetetus, the Sophistes, and the Politicus—
and are stated to have taken place at the time when Socrates
was indicted by Meletus.* The battle of Corinth, mentioned at
the beginning of the Theetetus, must have been that in which
Plato took a part, in the year of his return to Athens, B.c. 395 ;*

1 Stallbaum seems to have shown satisfactorily that the Zuthydemus must have
been written about the beginning of Ol. 94, 1.6. about B.0. 404. Its object is
evidently the same as that of the Protagoras, namely, to mark the essential dis-
tinction between the principles and conduct of Socrates and those of the Sophists,
with whom he was so often confounded. To the assumption of a corresponding
date for the Protagoras the chief objection, which occurs to the reader, is the
resemblance between this dialogue and the Symposiwm, which all are agreed in
regarding as one of Plato’s most matured works. Both of these dialogues introduce
Eryximachus and his friend Phedrus, Agatho and his admirer Pausanias, Alcibiades
and his relations to Socrates, with remarks of a very similar kind, and there are
unmistakeable resemblances of style_and allusion, as, for instance, in the reference
to the same line of Homer (Protagoras, 348 D., Symp. 174 D.). But the purport
of the two dialogues and the indications of a more mature and thoroughly Platonic
philosophy in the latter, must lead us to seek for the natural explanation of these
resemblances in that tendency to reproduction which is common to all authors.
The introduction of Critias in the Protagoras and Charmides need create no dif-
ficulty. If they were composed after the death of the tyrannical oligarch, the
amnesty was so faithfully observed by the democratical party that no mischief could
aecrue to Plato from such an allusion to his relatives.

2 This may be inferred from the natural wish of Plato, who was prevented from
defending Socrates at his trial, to send to Athens a written vindication of his
master, and an account of his noble unwillingness to evade the sentence of the
court.

3 In the introduction to the Theetetus, Eucleides is led by the mention of that
brave young philosopher, who had been wounded in the battle of Corinth, to read
to his friend Terpsion a written report of the imaginary conversations in which
Theetetus took a part, and at the end of the first dialogue Socrates says that
Meletus had indicted him.

4 For the battle of Corinth see Grote, IX. p. 425. We know nothing about the
battles of Tanagra and Delium at which Plato fought ; probably, as Clinton suggests,
they took place in the Corinthian or Theban war.

224 PLATO.

and there can be little doubt that these dialogues were written
shortly after that event. A fourth dialogue, which is unmis-
takeably referred to' in the three supposed to have been detailed
at Megara, and which is manifestly connected with them in
subject, is the Parmenides, which is supposed to have been held
in the younger days of Socrates, but is reallya Platonic review of
the Eleatic system considered in its connexion with the Megaric.
In this class, too, we must include the dialogue which gets its
name from his first teacher, the Heracleitean Cratylus. When
Plato returned from his first peregrmation and the bondage
which. concluded it, and established himself as a public teacher
in the neighbourhood of Colonus, he seems to have published
the Phedrus, as an introductory treatise, followed by the —
Menexenus, in direct rivalry of Lysias, whom he had criticized
in that previous dialogue ; and at intervals after this he must
have given to the world his Symposium, which treats, like the
Phedrus, of love, his Phedo, which discusses the immortality of
the soul, not without reference to the doctrine of transmigration,
so clearly stated in the Phedrus, the Philebus, which argues the
moral question in a Pythagorean spirit, perhaps the Meno, with
its theory of reminiscences,’ and certainly the second or com-
plete edition of the Republic, with its full development of all
these ideas, and its substitution of the three classes in the State
for the charioteer and horses of the Phedrus, as a representa-
tion of the tripartite division of the soul. This last was followed,

1 The Parmenides is distinctly alluded to in the Thectetus, p. 180 E., and it is
inferred from the Sophistes, p. 217 C., 253 E., 254 B., and from the Politicus, p.
257.A.B., that the Parmenides was the sequel of the two latter under the title of
the Philosophus.

2 Both C. F. Hermann and Stallbaum are inclined to class the Meno with the
earlier dialogues. The latter, adopting the views of Socher, thinks that Plato
would not have dealt so gently with Anytus, if he had written this dialogue after
his teacher’s death, but sees in it indications of ill-will between Anytus and Socrates.
Accordingly he places the dialogue about the middle of the 94th Olympiad. But
this argument would only apply to the supposition that the Meno was written
while the Socratic school entertained a fresh recollection of the part which Anytus
had played, and there would be no more difficulty in a calm exposure of Anytus
many years afterwards than in making Aristophanes and Socrates hoon companions
at the same feast. The reference to Ismenias, p. go A., places the dialogue after
Ol. 96, 1., B.c. 396 (Cf. Xen. Hell. III. 5, § 1.); and the doctrine of reminiscences
is too Pythagorean to allow us to separate the Meno from the Phedrus,

ORDER OF.PLATO’S WORKS. 225

probably after an interval, by the Timeus and Critias. And
the Laws were undoubtedly written after his last return from
Sicily, and when he had changed the general method of his
teaching and writing. Notwithstanding the differences of style
and the anacolutha or grammatical inconsequences which are found
in the Laws, to an extent of which we have no example in the
other works of Plato, the non-introduction of Socrates, and the
discrepancies in detail between the Laws and the Republic, we
entertain a perfect conviction that we have here a genuine work
of Plato. The faults of the style may be explained by the fact
that the Laws had not received the last touches of the author’s
pen; for Philippus of Opus is said to have transcribed the work
from the waxen tablets (ἐν κήροις)" and to have copied it out.
With regard to the non-introduction of Socrates, this is surely
a peculiarity which the author was at liberty to adopt if he
pleased. What would have been said if it had not been in the
form of a dialogue at all? The discrepancies in details between
the Laws and the Republic are explained by the different
purport of the two treatises. The author himself tells us that
the former is not intended to represent a perfect state, but
merely one that is relatively perfect ; and the discrepancies do
not affect any leading principles in Plato’s ethical system. But
even if the objections were of much more weight than they
seem to be, they would be overthrown by Aristotle’s direct and
positive testimony to the genuineness of the work.’

It does not appear that Plato made any formal division of his
writings according to their subject-matter. Generally it may be
said that they represent the dialectics and ethics, to which So-
crates confined his attention, and in a less elaborate form, the
physical philosophy of the older speculators, This tripartition
of philosophy was recognized in Plato’s time, and is said to have
been expressly adopted by Aristotle, Xenocrates, and the Stoics,°

_ 1 Diog. Laert. ITI. 25, who also mentions that this Opuntian disciple of Plato
was the author of the Zpinomis attributed to his great master.

2 Polit. 11. 6, ὃ τ.

3 Sextus Empiricus, adv. Mathem. VII. 16: ἐντελέστερον δὲ παρὰ τούτους οἱ
εἰπόντες τῆς φιλοσοφίας τὸ μέν τι εἶναι φυσικόν, τὸ δὲ ἠθικόν, τὸ δὲ λογικόν. ὧν δυνάμει
μὲν Πλάτων ἐστὶν ἀρχηγός, περὶ πολλῶν μὲν φυσικῶν, περὶ πολλῶν δὲ ἠθικῶν, οὐκ ὀλίγων
δὲ λογικῶν διαλεχθείς᾽ ῥητότατα δὲ οἱ περὶ τὸν Revoxpdry καὶ οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ Περιπάτου, ἔτι
δὲ οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς ἔχονται τῆσδε τῆς διαιρέσεως.

Voz. II. Q

226 PLATO.

but Cicero tells us that it was contemplated also by Plato,’ and
it may be discerned in his dialogues as we have them. In
accepting, however, this formally-scientific classification of
Plato’s dialogues, we shall be obliged to exclude all those which
were written before his return to Athens in B.c. 395, for none
of these can be considered as contributing directly to the de-
velopment of Plato’s system. They are rather examples of his
dramatic genius and dialectic skill applied to the exhibition of the
views peculiar to Socrates, or they are intended as justifications
of that philosopher, giving a favourable representation both of
his method and of the ethical principles which he adopted, and
contrasting him, in both respects, with the Sophists, in opposition
to the common prejudice at Athens, that he was only a Sophist
himself? If we take even the most elaborate of these early
dialogues, the Protagoras, and compare it with any one of those
which he published after his return from Megara, even the
Gorgias, which is the least scientific of that group, we shall see
that the former is entirely Socratic, while the latter uses the
person of Socrates merely to justify the opinions of Plato. It has
been well remarked by an English scholar, who is an authority
in all that relates to this subject,’ that ‘the speech of Callicles in
the Gorgias is throughout more applicable to the circumstances
of a comparatively young man, who, like Plato, on his first re-
turn to Athens, had his profession to choose, than to an elderly
and inveterate dialectician, such as Socrates must have been
considered at the time,.when this conversation is supposed to
take place ; that no reader of Plato need be at a loss for parallel
instances, in which the contemporaries of Plato would recognize
the author under the mask of his hero, or in which the opinions
of the parties and personages of his own time are antedated by
some twenty or thirty years; and that certainly no Callicles,
however well-intentioned, or however sanguine, could have
hoped to win over Socrates to a profession for which he was so
ludicrously disqualified by the absence of every one of those
gifts of nature which are commonly regarded as essential to

1 Acad. Post. I. 5, ὃ το.

2 Above, Chapter XXXVII., § 1. Ken. Mem. I. 6, § 15, I. 2, § 49, qq.

3 We quote from Professor RE MS. Lecture on the Gorgias, to which
we have been permitted to refer.

ORDER OF PLATO’S WORKS. 227

success in public life, whereas Plato had already given indi-
cations of an intention of taking that part in the public de-
liberations which he declined to assume, for reasons adequately
explained in the Gorgias and Republic’ In the Protagoras, on
the other hand, we have Socrates, as he was, opposed to a group
of the most eminent Sophists, who are drawn from the life, with
all the accuracy of a photograph, and exhibiting not only a most
favourable specimen of his peculiar dialectics, but also arguing
for that identification of virtue with knowledge which we have
seen’ was the special characteristic of his moral philosophy.
_The compliment to Socrates, and the prediction of his future
eminence, with which Protagoras concludes the dialogue, seem
to us to intimate very clearly that in this dialogue it was the
object of the zealous disciple to meet a growing prejudice
against his master, and to induce the Athenians to recognize
his present usefulness and future eminence. Protagoras is
made to say:? ‘For my part, Socrates, 1 commend your zeal,
and your skill in developing an argument; and I have often
said of you, that of all who fall in my way, I admire you most,
certainly by far the most of those of your standing, and that I
should not be surprised if you were to gain a place among dis-
tinguished philosophers.’

Omitting then, for these and the like reasons, all the dia-
logues, which were probably written before B.c. 395, we shall
get the following general results for a scientific classification and
subdivision of the genuine works of Plato. We may fairly con-
clude that Plato’s first object, in developing his own peculiar
views, would be to vindicate the principles of moral and political
speculation, which led him to the conclusion that no state could
really succeed until the rulers became philosophical, or philoso-
phers were placed in the seats of power. In thus maintaining
the importance of philosophy, he prepared the way for a dis-

cussion of those theories on which, as he thought, mental and
moral philosophy depend. Accordingly, we infer that he began
his systematic works by publishing the Gorgias and the first
sketch of the Republic? These works were not only his prope-

1 Above, Chapter XXXVII. ὃ 3. 2 Protagoras, p. 361 D.
3 It is too generally forgotten, in histories of ancient literature, that, in the case
of long-lived and prolific authors, the works which we have are very often trans-

Q2

228 PLATO.

deutic, or inaugural discourses, but also his means of setting him-
self right’ with those of his fellow-citizens who claimed from him
a more direct participation in their own every-day affairs. After
these he would naturally publish the dialectical reviews from
the Theetetus to the Parmenides, in which the principles of
abstract reasoning are controversially established. These are
emphatically the dialectical treatises, though the results appear
also in the later dialogues. Making a new start with the Phe-
drus, on opening his school after his release from bondage, he
reverts to the moral principles urged in the Gorgias and Re-
public, and discusses the philosophy of rhetoric with direct
reference to his most eminent contemporaries, Lysias and
Isocrates ;? and in a series of dialogues, terminating with a
revised and completed edition of the Republic, he blends together
his dialectical and moral principles, and gives us adaptations of
that Pythagorism with which he had made more accurate ac-
quaintance at Tarentum. These dialogues then, with the later
treatise on the Laws, represent generally the ethical system of
Plato. In the Phedo he had glanced at the bearing of these
questions on natural philosophy, and the play with numbers in
the Republic had reference as much to the physical as to the
political theories of the Pythagoreans ; but he has given a formal
development of his views on these matters in the Timeus, which
may therefore be regarded as a sample of Plato’s physical phi-
losophy. According to this subdivision, we will now examine
the general results of his system.

§ 7. The dialogues, in which Plato discusses more particularly
the science of dialectics, are a series of reviews representing,
partly by way of example, the faults of the counter-systems of

mitted to us in a revised or improved form, even if they are not entirely remodelled.
Among Plato’s dialogues, we see this most clearly in the Republic and the Parme-
nides, the latter of which is probably a new and separate edition of the treatise ‘on
the philosopher,’ which is the promised sequel to the Sophéstes and the Politicus.

1 In the German phrase, Plato orientirte sich in the Gorgias and the first sketch
of the Republic ; See Classical Schol. and Learning, p. 215.

2 Leonard Spengel, in an elaborate paper on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Munich Trans-
actions VI., 1852, pp. 465, sqq.), shows that the Phedrus gives Plato’s views on
scientific rhetoric; that Aristotle was immediately indebted to Plato’s exposition.
on this subject; and that in his Rhet. 11, 1—17, his πάθη καὶ ἤθη are a direct refe-
rence to Plato’s ψυχαγωγία,

DIALECTICS. 229

Parmenides, as developed in the Megaric school, and of Hera-
cleitus, as Plato had learned these opinions from Cratylus, and
perhaps also studied them at Ephesus.’ The opposition between
these two systems consisted, as is well known, in their anta-
gonistic theories respecting the law and the facts, the in-
telligible and the sensible, the form and the matter, the idea
and the phenomenon, the one and the many, the permanent and
the variable, that which is (ἔστι), and that which becomes, is
produced, or comes into being (γίγνεται. The Eleatics of the
school of Parmenides, and after them the Megarics of the school
of Eucleides, rested on the formule (1) that all is one, and that
there is no multiplicity or multeity of things; (2) that all is
one immutable being, and that there is no becoming (γένεσις),
no change, no alteration, augmentation and decay. According
to the Eleatics, the outward world of sense only seemed to be—
it had-no real existence. Parmenides himself declared in his
high-sounding verses : ‘ Nothing except Being either is or will
be ; for fate has fixed this at least—that the name ¢o Be belongs,
alone and unchangeable, to the All, in regard to whatever mor-
tals, in their confidence that such things are true, have set down
as coming into existence and perishing, as being and yet not being,
as undergoing change of place or change of aspect.’ To this
Unitarian doctrine of Being was directly opposed that of the
Ionian school of Heracleitus, which asserted that there is no
unity, no being, no permanence; that all is plurality, coming
into being (γένεσις), and fluctuation. This doctrine, modified
into the dogma of Protagoras, that ‘the individual man is the
standard of all things’ (πάντων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος), amounted to
an assertion that all knowledge is sensation, that there are no
realities in the world except those which meet us in the changing
objects around us, and that even the names of things are as ab-
solutely true as the objects which they are supposed to denote.’

1 See the expressions in Theetetus, p. 179 E.
3 Simplicius, ad Aristot. Phys. I. p. 31.
ἐπεὶ τό γε Moip’ ἐπέδησεν

οἷον ἀκίνητόν τ᾽ ἐμέναι τῷ ΤΠάντ᾽ ὄνομ᾽ ᾿Εστί
ὅσσα βροτοὶ κατέθεντο πεποιθότες εἶναι ἀληθῆ,
γιγνεσθαΐ τε καὶ ὄλλυσθαι, εἶναί τε καὶ οὐχί,
καὶ τόπον ἀλλάσσειν διά τε χρόα φανὸν ἀμείβειν.

3 Plato, Theetet. p. 151 E. 544.

230 PLATO.

Briefly stated, the Eleatic doctrine was that the formula for the
universal is one only; that of the Heracleiteans was that the
universe can be regarded only as many.

Plato, perceiving that neither of these propositions was €X-
clusively true, but that there was truth in each of them; that
the Eleatics were wrong in annihilating the sensible world, and
so depriving science of its materials, and the Heracleiteans
equally wrong in denying the intelligible world, and so depriving
science of its form; that philosophy was neither confined with
the former to a problem of logic, nor with the latter to a regis-
tration of phenomena ;—Plato, being convinced of this, adopted
as the symbol of his own system the following comprehensive
proposition—that the formula for the universal is neither one
only, nor many only, but one and many (ἕν καὶ πολλά), ὃ. é., the
subject of which many predicates may be asserted, and which
therefore appears as manifold.’ According to this view, the one
and the many are terms which do not exclude, but rather pre-
suppose one another ; the one is many and the many one, for
the general idea may be analyzed and divided into its sub-
ordinate ideas, the genus into its species, the one into the
many; and conversely, we may ascend from the individual to
the species, and the species to the genus, from the many to the
one.” Thus we see that Plato’s system, as distinguished from
‘that of the two schools which he undertook to criticize, rests
upon a proper conception of that which Leibnitz called ‘ the
definition real.”* The definition, as Socrates too had seen, con-
sists in generalization and division, i. ¢., it is made per genus et
differentiam ;* and to reason scientifically, it is necessary that we
should be able to generalize and classify (κατ᾽ εἴδη σκοπεῖν and
κατὰ γένος διακρίνειν). Science then depends on dialectics,
dialectics on the definition real, and the definition real on this

1 See Phileb. p. 14 C. sqq., and Sydenham’s note 51, pp. 86, sqq. Cf. Republ. V.
p- 476 A. Sophist. p. 251 A. Parmenid. p. 129 E.

2 This is what is meant by the συναγωγὴ and διαίρεσις mentioned in the
Phedrus, p. 265.

3 Nowveauc Essais sur V Entendement humain, Liv. III. Chap, III. pp. 252, sqq.

4 Phedrus, p. 249 Β. : δεῖ yap ἄνθρωπον ξυνιέναι κατ᾽ εἶδος λεγόμενον ἐκ πολλῶν
lov αἰσθήσεων εἰς Ev λογισμῷ ξυναιρούμενον. Cf. ibid, 273 E., where the phrase is
κατ᾽ εἴδη τε διαιρεῖσθαι τὰ ὄντα καὶ μιᾷ ἰδεᾷ καθ᾽ ἕν ἕκαστον περιλαμβάνειν.

ὅ Sophist. p. 253, 3 D.E. Phileb. p. 25 Β. βᾳᾳ. Phedr. p. 265 Ὁ.

DIALECTICS. 231

power of synthesis and analysis. So that Plato’s ideas are,
strictly speaking, nothing more than general terms, and Plato’s
dialectics necessarily rest on his examinations—the first that
had been attempted—of the syntax of the Greek language.
His procedure is as follows. He perceived that every pro-
position or enunciation necessarily consisted of a subject or
name of a thing (ὄνομα), which assumes its being or entity
(οὐσία), and of a predicate or assertion (ῥῆμα), which affirmed
or denied something of the subject. He says, however, that
words, whether subjects or predicates, express neither entity
nor action, neither being nor becoming, unless they are joined
together in a sentence; and then some tense of becoming is
predicated of some state of being—or the many are predicated
of the one—for then it is that we have a declaration concerning
existing things (subjects) as becoming, or having become, or
being about to become, and then we have not merely names
or subjects, but conclusions derived from the connexion of the
subject with the predicate.’ But how do we get the assumption
of entity in the subject or name? Because the act of naming
or affixing a general name, the name of the genus, is the first
step in classification, and in itself gives a fixity to things, which
is opposed to generation or becoming. The name is true and
accurate in proportion as it rests upon the definition real, of
which the main part is some general term including a multi-
plicity of objects, and the secondary part is an explanation of
the difference between this object and others which belong to
the same genus. This secondary process, or the per diffe-
rentiam, is subordinate to the per genus, and the dialectician’s

1 Phedr. p. 266 B.: τούτων δὴ ἔγωγε αὐτὸς ἐραστής, τῶν διαιρέσεων καὶ
συναγωγῶν.

2 See New Cratylus, § 59, where we have given reasons for believing that Plato
was, strictly speaking, a nominalist. This is shown incidentally by a comparison be-
tween the gentle reproach to the youthful Socrates in the Parmenides, p. 130 A.-C.,
for supposing that the science of names'is not independent of any want of dignity
in the objects which the names denote, and the distinct statement which we have
quoted below from Sophistes, p. 227 A.

3 Sophist. p. 262: ὅταν εἴπῃ τις ‘dvOpwros μανθάνει" λόγον εἶναι φὴς τοῦτον
ἐλάχιστόν τε καὶ πρωτον ; ἔγωγε. δηλοῖ γὰρ ἤδη που τότε περὶ τῶν ὄντων ἢ γεγονότων
ἤ μελλόντων καὶ οὐκ ὀνομάζει μόνον, ἀλλά τι περαίνει, συμπλέκων τὰ ῥήματα τοῖς
ὀνόμασιν, διὸ λέγειν τε αὐτὸν ἀλλ᾽ οὐ μόνον ὀνομάζειν εἴπομεν. καὶ δὴ καὶ τῷ πλέγ-
pare τούτῳ τὸ ὄνομα ἐφθεγξάμεν ἃ ὁ γ ον.

232 PLATO.

great object is to ascertain what are those general terms which —
are the objects of thought. They cannot belong to the objects
of sense—the phenomena—which are in a constant state of
transition, but must of necessity be included among those things
which we know by means of reflexion (διάνοια), through the un-
derstanding (λογισμός, νοῦς, νόησις) ; for these things, being
fixed, may be referred to entity (οὐσία), and made the objects
of science (ἐπιστήμη), or certain knowledge.’ _

This, then, is Plato’s theory of ideas, considered as a recon-
ciliation of the counter-propositions of the Eleatics and Hera-
cleiteans. Asserting against the former that the sensible is true,
he conceded. that it is so only by partaking of the intelligible
(κατὰ μέθεξιν τοῦ ὄντος) ; and while this is expressed dialec-
tically by a system of scientific classification, it is metaphy-
sically an .effort to ascend to the supreme idea, which has in it
nothing that.is:capable of being comprehended by the senses ;
for the subordinate ideas are but hypothetical notions from
which we reach the true elevation by means of continually
higher assumptions ;? . until at last we come to God, as the
supreme idea;.and thus the common standard of all things
is not man, as Protagoras asserted, but God-alone.’

In order. to.understand fully the manner in which Plato
works, out controversially this dialectical theory, it is necessary
to read carefully the series of dialogues, which he seems to have
written at brief intervals after his military service at Corinth,
aidj,in which he has immortalized. the young philosopher and
geometrician,* who was wounded, by his side, when the Lace-
dsemonians outflanked and crushed the left wing of the Athe-.
nian’ hoplites.. We must content ourselves with a general
sketch of this ingenious collection of criticisms in the form of
dialogues. The first three, a report of which Eucleides reads to

1 See Parmen. p..129 E., Phed. 65 C., Resp.. VII. p. 532 A. According to
Plato (Theetetus, p.. 187. A.).science must. be sought. ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ ὀνόματι ὅτι ποτ᾽
ἔχει ἡ ψυχή, ὅταν αὐτὴ. καθ᾽ αὑτὴν πραγματεύηται περὶ τὰ ὄντα.

2 Resp. VI. p. 511 B., comp. Pheedo, p. 100 A. Philebus, p.20-D. Resp. p.
610 C.

3 Leges, IV. p. 716 Ο.

4 Theetetus was the founder of the geometrical school, in which the great Euclid
was formed ; see below, ch. XLVI. § 6.

5 Theetet. p. 142. See Grote, History of Greece, IX. p. 427.

DIALECTICS. 233

his friend Terpsion, are represented as consecutive parts of a con-
ference commenced between Socrates and Theodorus, the mathe-
matician of Cyrene. The latter having spoken in high terms of a
young Athenian named Thezetetus, of Sunium, who resembled So-
crates in person, and who had probably been Plato’s friend and
fellow-exile at Megara, introduces him to Socrates, who at once
engages him in a discussion on science (ἐπιστήμη). The object
of the dialogue called Theetetus' is to refute three definitions of
this term, which are put into the mouth of the young student
of philosophy : (I.) that science is sensation (αἴσθησις), which, as
Socrates says, is much the same as the dogma of Protagoras,
‘the individual man is the standard of all things ;’ (II.) that
science is right conception (ἡ ἀληθὴς δόξα), from which we get
a most subtle disquisition on the nature of false conception,
with particular reference to the fallacies of the Megarics and
Cynics, and with the celebrated illustration of memory as a waxen
tablet ;? (III.) that science is right conception combined with
accurate definition or reasonable explanation (ἡ μετὰ λόγου
ἀληθὴς δόξα). The result of the dialogue is purely negative ;
it consists in showing that no one of these definitions of science

1 We have given an analysis of this dialogue in our article on Plato in the Penny
Cyclopedia, and we recommend the dialogue itself to the careful consideration of
any young student, who wishes really to comprehend the dialectics of Plato, or the
effects of his philosophy on the theories of his successors and the rival schools of
philosophy. There can be little doubt, for example, that the speculations of Car-
neades have a direct reference to the Theetetus of Plato; see below, chap. XLVII.
§ 8.

3 Professor Thompson remarks (Butler’s Lectwres, vol. II. p. 103 note, ὃ 25)
that ‘to this part of the dialogue Locke’s celebrated chapter on memory presents
a striking parallel (Essay, B. II. chap. X. 88 4, 5).’

3 There is some difficulty as to the interpretation of λόγος in this third descrip-
tion of ἐπιστήμη. The elucidation added by Theztetus, where he gives this des-
cription at second-hand (201 D), ὧν μή ἐστι λόγος, οὐκ ἐπιστητὰ εἶναι, and the whole
course of the argument which follows, show that λόγος must mean, as we have
rendered it in the text, definition or explanation. So Stallbaum translates μετὰ
λόγου, cwm explicatione verbis expressd (Proleg. p. 27), Schleiermacher ‘ die mit ihrer
Erklirung verbundene richtige Vorstellung,’ and Mr. Butler (Lectures, II. p. 104)
says, ‘Science is pronounced to be opinion μετὰ λόγου---ἃ qualification, which
seems from the subsequent tenor of the discussion, to signify judgment with expli-
cation.’ The subdivisions carried on in the Sophistes are probably illustrations of
that explication, which Plato meant by λόγος, as distinguished from the definition
real. The locus classicus for the distinction between the οὐσία, the λόγος, and the
ὄνομα, is in the Laws, X. pp. 895—6.

234 PLATO.

is capable of being sustained ; but the author more than suggests
in the course of the disquisition the positive result which he
would substitute for these exploded hypotheses, namely, the
method of true classification and real definition as the basis of
dialectics. The abrupt termination of the Theetetus is excused
by Socrates on the ground that he is obliged to attend at the
porch of the king archon, and meet the indictment of Meletus ;
but he appoints the following morning for the adjourned dis-
cussion with Theodorus and his pupils. In accordance with
this arrangement the mathematician of Cyrene comes to the
rendezyous, bringing with him a foreign philosopher of the
Eleatic school, and the second dialogue in this series, which is
called the Sophistes, from the general subject of the definitions
which it attempts, is mainly carried on between this Eleatic
stranger and Theztetus, Socrates sitting by rather to watch
and preside over the dialogue than to take any active part in
it. The stranger, who is represented as a man of conspicuous
moderation and courtesy, does not go to any great length in
maintaining the principles of his school, but he is allowed to
exhibit some of the trifling, in which the Eleatics, and, after
them, the Megarics, were wont to indulge ; and it was, no doubt,
Plato’s object to show that all the hair-splitting of these subtle
analytical disputants,'’ with their perpetual bisection of the suc-
cessive subdivisions, was, after all, only a play with words, which
did not necessarily issue in a real definition, that, in fact, the
ideal theory required the use of reflexion (διάνοια) and under-
standing (λογισμός), and was not attained merely by definition
in words (λόγος), which led only to a sort of primd facie clas-
sification. On the whole, then, we may say, that, as the Thee-
tetus was designed to confute more especially the opinions of
Protagoras and Heracleitus, so the Sophistes was intended, less
directly but quite as intelligibly, to exhibit the deficiencies of
the Eleatic and Megaric schools, into which Plato had passed

1 Another Butler, not the Professor at Dublin, has very happily described the
kind of explication by way of subdivision, which is exhibited in the Sophistes
(Hudibras, I. 1, 65):

‘He was in logic a great critic
Profoundly skilled in analytic ;
He could distinguish and divide,
A hair ’twixt south and south-west side.’

DIALECTICS. 235

from that of the Heracleitean Cratylus;' to show, in fact, that if the
Heracleiteans were wrong in their annihilation of the intelligible
world, neither were the Eleatics right in confining all truth to the
predication of entityand unity. That his dissent from the philoso-
pher, whose hospitality he had so recently enjoyed, was less marked
than that which separated him from his first teacher, Cratylus,
is shown by the general tone of the dialogue and by the manner
in which he occasionally allows the Eleatic stranger to express
his own thoughts and opinions. For example, he would not have
repeated in the Politicus, his assertion ‘ that in scientific classi-
fication we have nothing to do with the dignity or meanness of
the subject-matter,’ unless he had attached some importance on
its own account to the statement in the Sophistes* that ‘the
science of definitions does not pay more or less attention to the
art of purgation externally by the sponge than to that of pur-
gation internally by medicine, because the benefits of the latter
are more important ; for, as its object is to understand the affi-
nity or dissimilitude of all arts, in regard to their definition,
this science attaches equal value to them all in this respect, and
does not regard one art as more ridiculous than another in
regard to that which they have in common ; for example, it does
not consider the man who illustrates the art of capturing by
means of generalship more dignified, but only more ostentatious
and pretentious, than the man who illustrates the same art by
catching vermin. That in the midst of all his persiflage he
intended to define the Sophist as contrasted with the true States-
man, whom he depicts in the Politicus, and the true Philo-
sopher, whom he indirectly exhibits in the Parmenides, must be
clear to all attentive readers. In the Politicus, Thetetus,
who resembles Socrates in person, makes way for a younger

1 There is a direct comparison of the two schools in the Sophistes, p. 242 C.

2 p. 266 Ὁ. 3 p. 227 A.

4 The connexion in thought between this passage and that in the Parmenides
(p. 130 C.), when the question is raised, whether there is such a thing as the abstract
idea of a hair, or mud, or filth, or any other of the vilest and most contemptible
objects, appears to us to indicate not only the genuineness of the Parmenides, but
also its connexion with the Politicus and the Sophistes. Aristotle’s reference to
- the Politicus, which we haye quoted below, is sufficient to establish the authen-
ticity of that dialogue, and the connected works, must, as we think, stand or fall
together,

236 PLATO.

Socrates, a namesake of the great philosopher, who, as in the
former dialogue, takes no active part in the discussion. Al-
though we have here also a sample of the same Eleatico-Megaric
subtleties of successive subdivision, it is clear enough that the
writer seriously intends to define the true—that is, the philoso-
phical—Statesman, such as he or his imitator describes in’
the 7th epistle, such as he indirectly adumbrates in the
Gorgias, such as he elaborately exhibits in his ideal Republic,
such as he presents, in relation to the universal frame of
nature, in the Timeus. Developing what Plato had already
written in the almost contemporary dialogue of Gorgias,
and in the first edition of the Republic—if they pre-
ceded, as seems most probable, the publication of the Politicus,
—and anticipating the views of the Timeus, which is manifestly
one of the latest of Plato’s works, this dialogue is a glimpse
of Plato’s ethical philosophy in the midst of his dialectical
criticiams. Out of the fifty-four pages of which this dialogue con-
sists, about one-half are purely dialectical,’ the rest being either
on the politico-ethical subject, or having reference to the ori-
ginal condition of man and his relations to the divine theocracy. -
That the author does not regard his dialectical minutiz as un-
instructive trifling is clear from the apology which he puts into
the mouth of the Eleatic disputant:? ‘ Our discourse bids us
regard, not in the first, but in the second place, in point of im-
portance, that length of the investigation which is suitable to
the subject under discussion, namely, that we may find the
object of our search as early and as speedily as possible ; but in
the highest degree and in the first place it recommends us to
honour on its own account the scientific procedure (μέθοδος),
namely, the being able to divide the genus into its species
(kar εἴδη διαιρεῖν) ; and with regard to the discourse, if, on the
one hand, by being spoken at great length it shall make the hearer
more inventive, we are enjoined to pursue it zealously, and not

1 The dialectical part is from p. 258 C., to p. 268E., andfrom p. 274 E., top. 291 C.

2 Politicus, p. 286 D. We must compare with this passage, Plato’s candid ad-
missions of his voluntary and intentional discursiveness in the Republic, VI. p. 487
B, and Theetetus, p. 173 B, and the recommendation to the youthful Socrates which
puts into the mouth of the venerable Parmenides: ἕλκυσον σαυτὸν καὶ γύμνασαι
μᾶλλον διὰ THs δοκούσης ἀχρήστου εἶναι καὶ καλουμένης ὑπὸ THY πολλῶν ἀδολεσχίας,
ἕως ἔτι νέος εἶ (Parmen. p. 135 C.).

DIALECTICS. 237

be annoyed by its prolixity; and similarly if it be more con-
cise. Moreover, the person, who complains of prolixity in
discussions of this kind, and disapproves of round-about argu-
mentation, must not so very quickly and at once dismiss the
argument with the complaint that it is lengthy, but must show
besides that, if it were shorter, it would render the disputants
better dialecticians (διαλεκτικωτέρους), and more inventive in
the art of explaining realities by means of language.’ This
passage should be in the recollection of modern réaders when
they find fault with what appears to them sometimes the pur-
poseless and tedious perplexity of discussions which the ancient
logicians valued on that very account and for their own sake.
Plato’s definition of the statesman’s art is very plainly given in
the Politicus. The faculty of the statesman (ἡ τοῦ πολιτικοῦ
δύναμις) is, he tells us, that which rules and presides over all
laws and public deliberations and guides them to their proper
end,’ and the best of all governments is that form of monarchy
in which the state is ruled by a really wise and virtuous man.
If all states were equally bad, it would be best to live under a
democracy; if all were equally good, the monarchical form of
government would be most eligible. But the ideal state, in
which the virtuous philosopher is the living interpretation of
the law, is far better than any actual monarchy in the world.
It is only an inference,* but we believe it to be a well-founded
inference, that the Parmenides is the dialogue to which the So-
phistes and Politicus refer as the coming discourses on ‘the philo-
sopher.’ The passages,on which this conclusion depends, are those
in the Theetetus and Sophistes, in which distinct reference is
made to the fact that Socrates, when very young, held such a
conversation with Parmenides as is represented in the dialogue
so named,’ those in the Sophistes,° in which the character of the
philosopher is described, just as that character is fully exhibited
in the Parmenides, and those in the Sophistes and Politicus, in

1 p. 304 D. The direct reference to this dialogue at the very beginning of Ari-
stotle’s Politics (I. 1, §2, comp. with Plato, Politicus, p. 258 E.) shows the importance
of the work in those days. 2 p. 301 Ὁ. 3 p. 303 A.

4 This inference is due to Stallbaum, Prolegom. ad Parmen. (Lips. 1839), p. 334;
Proleg. ad Sophist. (Gothe, 1840), p. 52 ; Proleg. ad Politic. (Gothx, 1841), p. 33,
and to Zeller, Platonische Studien, p. 236.

5 Theetet. p. 183 E. Sophist. p..217 Ο, § Sophist. p. 253 Ὁ, E,

238 PLATO.

which a discourse on the philosopher is promised as a neces-
sary sequel.’ The chief difficulty in accepting this conclusion
is occasioned by the fact that in the Parmenides, as we have it,
there is no mention of Thextetus, Theodorus, the Eleatic
stranger, and the other persons present in the three connected
dialogues. In the Parmenides, as it stands, Cephalus, the
Clazomenian,’ begins at once, without a word of preface, and
without any intimation of the persons whom he is addressing,
to narrate how, on his arrival at Athens from his house at Cla-
zomens, he fell in with Adeimantus and Glauco, and was by
them taken to Antipho’s house, who told them, on the autho-
rity of Pythodorus, the details of the conversation between
Socrates and Parmenides, when the former was quite a young
man,’ and the latter sixty-five years old. The other parties to the
dialogue, thus reported at third hand—for Pythodorus tells
Antipho, Antipho relates it to Cephalus and his two com-
panions,,and Cephalus recounts it to his unknown auditors—
are Zeno, the philosopher, and Aristoteles, who was afterwards
one of the thirty tyrants. To the difficulty occasioned by
the independent preface to the Parmenides it has been
thought a sufficient answer that, as we are not told to whom
Cephalus recounted the dialogue, there is nothing to prevent us
from supposing that his hearers were the persons who had
taken a part in the three connected dialogues. And to this
solution there is no chronological objection ; for the Theetetus
and its associated dialogues are represented as taking place in
B.c. 399, and Cephalus, the Clazomenian, is made to speak of
the conversation, which he relates, as having happened very
long before the time when he repeats it.“ Our conclusion is

1 Sophist. p. 216 E. sq., 254 B. Polit. p. 257 A.

2 The mention of Glauco and Adeimantus, who appear in conjunction with
Cephalus, the father of Lysias, in the Republic, might lead us to conclude that the
Cephalus of the Parmenides was the same person. But the latter was a Clazo-
menian, probably one of the school of Anaxagoras, like his companions who are
described as μάλα φιλόσοφοι (Parmen. p. 126 B.), and the former was a Syracusan,
who had lived 30 years at Athens (above, ch. XXXV. § 1), whereas the Clazo-
menian had not been at Athens since he was a boy.

3 Synesius (Calv. Enc. 17) says, he was then 25 years old.

4 He says he was a boy when he first came to Athens, πολὺς δὲ ἤδη χρόνος ἀπ᾽
ἐκείνου, and he speaks of the λόγους obs ποτε Σ. καὶ Ζ. καὶ ΤΙ. διελέχθησαν, and
implies that Antipho recollected them (ἀπομνημονεύει) from frequent repetitions.

DIALECTICS. 239

this: as the Eleatic stranger is indicated as the person from
whom we are to expect the description of the philosopher, and
as the philosopher introduced is one of his own school, we
must suppose that he reads the report of Cephalus from some
manuscript left in his possession by that respectable old man,
and the loss of the connecting prefatory matter must be ex-
plained in the same way as the similar omission in the Re-
public, where we are left to conclude from the Timeus and
Critias, who are the persons favoured with this narrative of a
conversation in ten books. We have mentioned above’ some of
the reasons for supposing that the Republic, as we have it, in
its lengthened form, but without any introduction, was the
revised and enlarged edition of a work originally written about
the same time as the Gorgias ; and we are convinced that the
Parmenides, also, in its present state, was the result of the re-
casting and almost re-writing of a dialogue, which had been pub-
lished long before, as the Philosopher, and as a connected sequel
to the Theetetus, Sophistes, and Politicus ; and that the loss of
the introductory matter, in this as in the Republic, is due to the
fact that Plato was still at work about them both at the time
of his death. If we had the preface to the Parmenides, it
would probably tell us that Socrates left to the Eleatic stranger
the task of narrating the conversation, because he professed to
forget what he had heard and said so many years before. It
would be impossible to give any idea, to a person who has not
read the dialogue, of the subtle and elaborate reasonings of the
Parmenides, which is perhaps the most remarkable specimen of
dialectical power to be found in the whole range of philosophical
literature. We must be satisfied with saying’ that the Par-
menides discusses at length the various forms and consequences
of the hypothetical propositions which rest on the suppositions :
(1.) ‘If the One is; (2.) ‘ If the One is not ;’ the apodosis or
conclusion being an answer to the question—‘ what are we to
understand by the One and by the things other than One ?’
There are nine forms, according to this dialogue, of the apodosis,
five for the positive, and four for the negative assumption ; or

1 See above, § 6.
2 Tn the text we have followed Renouvier’s account of the Parmenides, which
gives perhaps the simplest analysis of this subtle dialogue ; see Manuel de Philo-

240 PLATO.

if we regard the third as merely a natural consequence of the
second, we shall have four of each. Now the last four, or the
results of the negative hypothesis, are a reductio ad absurdum
of those who maintain the theory of multiplicity without the
real unity, the πολλὰ without the &—of the Heracleiteans, in
fact; for the 7th and gth propositions compel them to deny the
existence of plurality, while they reject even the name of
unity, and the 6th and 8th propositions oblige them to recognize —
in the One and in other things the same properties con-
trary to those which they would have if the One existed really.
And the first four (or, if we prefer it, five) propositions are di-
vided between the Megarics and Plato. The first and last of
this set (propositions 1st and 5th) reduce the Megarics to a
profession of nihilism, because assuming the ἕν without the
πολλά, they place each of the ideas by itself and deny their
participation in one another. The intervening propositions (2,
3 and 4) contain the system of Plato. The One exists and
partakes of being, and the other ideas partake of it, so that
Unity as well as Plurality—the ἕν καὶ roAAa—both belong to
existence or entity, which thus combines the apparent contra-
dictions. Considered then as an exhibition of the ideal philo-
sopher, the Parmenides shows that this ideal is not to be found
either in the Eleatico-Megaric or in the Heracleiteo-Cratylean

sophie Anciénne, II. pp. 24, 25. The following is his statement of the nine hypo-
thetical propositions:

PosITIVE ASSUMPTIONS. NEGATIVE ASSUMPTIONS.
If the one is: If the one is not:
1. There is no science, sensation or 6. There must be contradictory pre-
opinion of this one, when it is absolute. dications.
2. There is science, sensation, &c., of 4. There can be no science, &c.
the one, if it admits of logical predica- 8. Other things must exist, because

tions or may be distributed in predicates; we speak of them; and therefore they
so that the one is combined with the both exist and do not exist.
many. 9. Nothing exists.
3. There is a co-ordinate possibility of
similitude and dissimilitude, &c., in the
latter case.
4. Also a compatibility of contraries.
5. But when the many and the one
are absolutely contrasted and opposed,
there is no possibility of logical predica-
tions,

DIALECTICS. 241

school, but might be manifested by one, who, like himself,
brought to a review of these systems the dialectical method of
Socrates and the abstract speculations of the Pythagoreans.
It seems to us that Plato had a special object in giving this
development of his philosophical principles in a dialogue which
represents his teacher Socrates, while still a young man, in
direct intercourse with Parmenides, from whose school, com-
bined with that of Socrates, the Megaric philosophers derived
their doctrines. The compliments paid to Socrates by the
veteran philosopher, the warning to him to avoid the influences
of current opinions, and the recommendation to examine the
negative as well as the positive assumption in his hypothetical
reasonings, all seem to show that Plato wished to represent
Socrates as the true founder of his own school, no less than of
the Megaric, and to indicate the importance of the rules which
Socrates had not applied, which the Megarics had deliberately
set aside, and which he adopted as the clue to the solution of
the problem respecting the One and the Many. The sequel
and supplement to this series of four dialogues is the Cratylus.
Although it was the natural tendency of Plato’s system to
make general terms the proper objects of reasoning and the
materials of science, although he was, like his predecessor So-
crates, a nominalist rather than a realist, he was not the less
on this account opposed to the extravagances of ultra-nomi-
nalism. And when he found the two schools, which he made
the chief objects of his criticisms, the Eleatics as well as the
Heracleiteans, engaged in etymological researches, which pre-
sumed that truth and science were to be discovered in sounds
and signs, the spoken elements of a living language, especially
when he saw that Aristippus had given a still more pernicious
extension to these theories,’ he felt himself obliged to add to
his general review of the two counter-systems an exposure of the
absurdities which had resulted from an attempt to deal pre-
maturely with the great problem of language.’ As the Eleatics,
in this and in other matters, were much less opposed to Plato’s
views than the Heracleiteans, we find that Cratylus, the original

1 Above, chapter XX XVII. ὃ 6. 2 See New Cratylus, ὃ 60,
Vou, II, R

242 PLATO.

instructor of Plato, who gives his name to the dialogue, is made
to bear the chief brunt of the irony and ridicule ; while Her-
mogenes, the brother of Callias, who appears as a supporter of
the Eleatic doctrines, is allowed to speak contemptuously of
Protagoras’ book called ‘Truth’ The general result of the
dialogue is that, as words are merely the images of things, it
would be much better, even if we could learn the nature of
things from their names, to make the truth a criterion as well
of itself as of its image.’

§ 8. The moral and political philosophy of Plato rests entirely
on his dialectics. Indeed the ethical and political dialogues are so
interspersed with logical and metaphysical disquisition that it
would be impossible to separate the method of language and
thought from its practical applications.” It may be said, how-
ever, that if we add the Gorgias, the Republic and the Laws to
those works which Plato published after opening his school in
the Academia, we shall have the bulk of what he wrote respecting
the nature of virtue, the objects of life, and the duties of man
as an individual and a citizen. Our limits will not permit to
give a lengthened analysis of this long series of elaborate essays,
but it will not be difficult to indicate the general views which
they develope, and the many details m which they contribute
respectively to the ethical theory of Plato.

The main principles, which form the basis of these speculations
are,—that the soul is independent of the body,—that it is tri-
partite,—and that its three divisions, with their due combination,

1 Cratylus p. 439 A.: εἰ οὖν ἔστι μὲν ὅτι μάλιστα δι᾽ ὀνομάτων τὰ πράγματα μαν-
θάνειν, ἔστι δὲ καὶ δι’ αὐτῶν, ποτέρα ἂν εἴη καλλίων καὶ σαφεστέρα ἡ μάθησις ; ἐκ τῆς
εἰκόνος μανθάνειν αὐτήν τε αὐτήν, εἰ καλῶς εἴκασται, καὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἧς ἣν ἡ εἰκών,
ἢ ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας αὐτήν τε αὐτὴν καὶ τὴν εἱκόνα αὐτῆς, εἰ πρεπόντως εἴργασται;

2 There are in fact many passages in which Plato recognizes a subordination of
virtue in general to wisdom, on the true Socratic principle ; see especially Phado
p. 69 A, where even the other three cardinal virtues ἀνδρεία, σωφροσύνη, δικαιοσύνη,
are to be purchased by the fourth φρόνησις as the only true coin—ddN Ff ἐκεῖνο
μόνον τὸ νόμισμα ὀρθόν, ἀνθ᾽ οὗ δεῖ ἅπαντα ταῦτα καταλλάττεσθαι, φρόνησις, Kat
τούτου μὲν πάντα καὶ μετὰ τούτου ὠνούμενά τε καὶ πιπρασκόμενα τῷ ὄντι ἣ, καὶ ἀνδρεία
Καὶ δικαιοσύνη καὶ ξυλλήβδην ἀληθὴς ἀρετὴ ἢ μετὰ φρονήσεως. So that this one
virtue plays the part of virtue in general in the lines of Euripides (@dipus fr. TX.
Dind.), attributed to Sophocles by Clem. Alex. Strom. IV. p. 574, Potter :

οὔτοι νόμισμα λευκὸς dpyupos μόνον
καὶ χρυσός ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ χἠρετὴ βροτοῖς
γόμισμα κεῖται πᾶσιν ἣ χρῆσθαι χρεών.

MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 243

are indicated by the relations of the four cardinal virtues. This
view, which is supported throughout by suggestions derived
from the Pythagoreans, is opposed, like his dialectics, to the
counter systems of the Heracleiteans and Eleatics, and in many
respects also to that of Socrates. While he at once discards
the notion that pleasure resulting from sensible impressions can
be the highest good—for this would be to admit morally what
he had denied scientifically in the Theetetus, namely, the para-
mount influence of the senses,—he also rejects the claim of
knowledge alone to be considered as the chief good, which
would have brought him back to the views of the Eleatics, the
Megarics, and some other Socratic schools.

The allegory or mythus in the Phedrus opens the way to a
comprehension of the principles which Plato wished to enforce.’
The soul, we are told, is immortal, because it is self-moved ; it
not only does not perish with the body, but it existed before it
was enveloped in any bodily frame. It is god-like also; but
the human soul differs from that which belongs to the deities
in one of its three parts. For the soul may be compared to a
charioteer driving a pair of winged steeds. Now the horses
and drivers of the gods are all both good themselves and of good
extraction ; but, in the case of men, the charioteer, the Reason,
has to drive two horses of opposite descent and opposite cha-
racter ; one of them is well-bred and well-trained, and the other
quite the reverse :? the quiet horse,—the Will—is obedient to
the rein and strives to draw its wilder yoke-fellow,—the Appe-
tite—along with it, and to induce it to listen to the voice of
the charioteer, the Reason: but they have much pain and
trouble with it, and the whole object of the charioteering is lost
if it contrives to get the better of them. In this allegory it is
intimated that the Reason exacts obedience from the lower
faculties, not merely for the sake of that subordination which
constitutes the moral goodness of man, but also because it is
thus enabled to take a calm view of abstract truth, and to gaze
on the eternal realities, which in this world are clothed in the
garb of space and time. According to the allegory, the soul in

1 Phedrus, p. 245 sqq.
2 Τῇ the elaborate description of the unruly steed (Phedr. p. 253 E), we should
adopt Porson’s unpublished emendation περὶ τὰ ὦτα λασιόκωφος for λάσιος, κωφός.
R 2

244 : PLATO.

its previous state of existence, traverses the circuit of the uni-
verse, in the train of the gods, with Zeus at their head, and if
the Reason can control his restive steed so far as to be able to
raise his own head above the heavenly vault, he is borne round
by the revolution of the celestial sphere, and though sore en-
cumbered with his horses, sees, however faintly and imperfectly,
the essences of things, which are there disclosed to his gaze ;
for ‘real existence, colourless, formless, and intangible, visible
only to the intelligence which guides the helm of the soul, and
with which the family of true science is conversant, finds its
abode in that region.’ And it is the remembrance of this gaze
which furnishes the soul of man with its ideas of the true and
the beautiful after it has descended to this lower world and
become united with a body. This figurative picture contains the
germs of the thoughts which are developed in the connected
dialogues. The doctrine of the soul’s reminiscences in a pre-
vious state, becomes the argument for its immortality in the
Phedo, and it helps to solve the question as to the teachableness
of virtue in the Meno. The same Phzdrus, who evokes the
discourse about love in the dialogue called by his name, is
declared to be the father and founder of the argument’ in the
Symposium, where the guests at Agatho’s table make a series
of panegyrics on love, which are finished off by the discourse put
into the mouth of Socrates, but attributed to the Arcadian
prophetess Diotima; and here we have the same doctrine as in
the Phedrus, that virtue and science spring from that true love
which is produced by the contemplation of ideal beauty. ‘ What
effect, says Diotima,’ ‘would the sight of beauty itself have
upon a-man were he to see it pure and genuine, not corrupted
and stained all over with the mixture of flesh and colour, and
suchlike perishing and fading trash, but were able to view that
divine essence, the beautiful itself, in its’ own simplicity of
form? Do you not perceive, that in beholding the beautiful
with that eye with which alone it is discernible,‘ thus and thus
only could a man generate not the images or semblances of
virtue, but virtue itself, true, real, and substantial, by conversing

1 Phedr. p. 247 C: ἡ γὰρ ἀχρώματός τε καὶ ἀσχημάτιστος καὶ ἀναφὴς οὐσία ὄντως
οὖσα ψυχῆς κυβερνήτῃ μόνῳ θεατὴ νῷ, περὶ ἣν τὸ τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἐπιστήμης γένος, τοῦτον
ἔχει τὸν τόπον. : 2 Sympos. p. 177 D. 3 Jbid. p. 211 D.

4 ὁρῶντι ᾧ ὁρατὸν τὸ καλόν t.€. νῷ. Phedr. p. 247 C.

MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 245

with and embracing that which is real and true. Thus, be-
getting true virtue and bringing her up to maturity, he would
become a favourite with the gods, and at length he would be, if
man ever was so, himself one of the immortals.’

But the practical development of these lofty and Gianneet.
dental views of morality is to be found most fully in the
Republic, and their metaphysical elaboration is reserved for the
Philebus. The criticisms on the rhetorical school of Lysias,
Thrasymachus, and Gorgias, bring the Phedrus into one contact
with the Gorgias and the Republic, which are connected also
by the general objects referred to above, and by their eschatology
or doctrine of retribution in a future state.’ But we think that
the Republic, most probably in a later edition,? was intended
especially to develope the connexion between the tripartite
division of the soul, and the four cardinal virtues, to which so
much importance was attached. According to Plato,’ moral
virtue is the due subordination of man’s lower faculties to his
reason ; in other words, man is virtuous when the Will acts as
the servant of Reason in controlling the Appetite. Considered
as an individual, man is righteous and just, or generally
virtuous and good, in proportion as this subordination is com-
plete. In his social capacity, as a state or republic, man
attains to this perfection in proportion as the guards, or military

-1 Among the striking similarities of the Republic and the Gorgias, we may men-
‘tion particularly the refutation of Polus in the latter as compared with the Republic,
p- 445, where at B we ought to read ἐπείπερ ἐνταῦθα ἐληλύθαμεν ὅπου for ὅσον.

2 One of the most decisive proofs that the Republic, as we have it, is a second
and enlarged edition of a work originally published some years previously, is fur-
nished by the manner in which the discussion in the 5th book is introduced.
Socrates there says that he would have been satisfied with a brief statement of his
views respecting the community of women and children, and it would appear as if
some criticisms had compelled him to elaborate this part of his theory. It seems
probable that the sixth beok was the conclusion of the Republic in its original form ;
at least there is a trace of this in p. 506 ἢ, where Glaucon says to Socrates, μὴ
πρὸς Διός, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τέλει ὧν ἀποστῇς. * 3 Respublica, IV. pp. 427 sqq.

4 Plato’s phrases are τὸ λογιστικόν, τὸ θυμοειδές, τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν (p. 439 D). The
second of these, representing the better steed in the Phedrus, is sometimes ren-
dered the ‘irascible principle,’ and Cicero translates it by tracwndia (de Republ. I.
38): but Hooker and Hemsterhuis the younger more properly render it ‘ the will,’
la velleité ; for it is the natural auxiliary of the reason (τὸ θυμοειδὲς ἐπίκουρον TY
λογιστικῷ φύσει Resp. IV. p. 441 A), and the idea of spirit and courage implied in
the word θυμὸς is well illustrated by the figurative statement that when a sedition
arises in the soul, the will draws itself up in battle array by the side of the reason
(ὦ τῇ τῆς ψυχῆς στάσει τίθεσθαι τὰ ὅπλα πρὸς τοῦ λογιστικοῦ, Resp. LV. p. 440 E).

246 PLATO.

caste, representing the Will, subserve the philosophical rulers,
representing the reason, in controlling the turbulent populace,
representing the Appetite. Now, the four cardinal virtues, by
which, according to the ancients, the whole province of morality
was exhausted, were—(1.) Prudence or Wisdom, (φρόνησις) ;
(2.) Courage or Fortitude, (ἀνδρεία) ; (3.) Temperance, or Self-
control, (σωφροσύνη); (4.) Justice or Righteousness, (δικαιοσύνη).
In the imdividual the first is the virtue of the Reason, the
second of the Will, and the third of the Appetite, while the
fourth represents the state or condition resulting from the
harmony of the whole. In the republic or society, the first is
the virtue of the rulers, the second of the valiant standing-
army, the third of the well-conducted populace; and the re-
maining virtue is the virtue of the whole, the principle and
cause of the existence of the three others, compelling each por-
tion of the commonwealth to keep to its own business, and to
abstain from all interference with the affairs of the other depart-
ments, (that is, in the Greek sense, to avoid πολυπραγμοσύνη)."
So then in the virtuous man and in the righteous republic, the
Reason is full of wisdom, the Will is strong in fortitude, and
the Appetite under the healthy influence of self-control; and
all these are kept together in one concert or harmony by justice,
just as the musical harmony combines the highest, the lowest,
and the middle sound.” This due subordination and harmony

1 IV. p. 434 B, 443 Ὁ, 444 B.

2 IV. p. 443 D: ξυναρμόσαντα τρία ὄντα ὥσπερ ὅρους τρεῖς ἁρμονίας ἀτεχνῶς
νεάτης καὶ ὑπάτης καὶ μέσης. Τῦ is now admitted that Shakspere must have been
acquainted, by means of some translation, with this passage, and that he was not
merely following Cicero’s imitation when he wrote (Henry V., Act I., se. II.):

Exeter, While that the armed hand doth fight abroad
The advised head defends itself at home:
For government through high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent,
Co-greeing in a full and natural close
Like music.
Canterbury. Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion,
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience.
See the note in Knight’s Pictorial Shakspere, p. 328. There is also something
more than fortuitous in the correspondence between the praise of love in the
Sympos. p. τοῦ B, and that in Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV. se. 111.

MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 247

are necessary to the proper contemplation of the idea of the good,
which, with Plato, is the essence of true religion.’ On this
subject, Plato has expressed his meaning in a remarkable pas-
sage of the Republic. The sun, he says, is a visible image of
the idea of the good. For while the other senses, such as the
hearing, need nothing intermediate or additional, in order to
the perception of objects, the sight, on the other hand, does need
the intervention or mediation of light, otherwise the colour and
the form will uot be visible. Now this light is derived from
the sun ; and the benefit, which our sight derives from the sun,
is analogous to the benefit which our reason derives from the
idea of the good; for, as the eye cannot see without the inter-
veution of light, so the reason cannot discern the things of the
ideal world without the light of truth. Consequently, the idea
of the good is that which imparts truth to the objects of our
reason, and the power of discerning truth to the reason itself.
The idea of the good, therefore, is far above truth and the
knowledge of truth; and as light and the faculty of vision are
akin to the sun, but not identical with it, so truth, and the
knowledge of truth, are related to the idea of the good, but are
not identical with this idea, The sun is also an image of the
idea of the good in another way. As the sun not merely enables
the eye to see, but likewise supplies nourishment and growth
to the visible objects, so the idea of the good not merely enables
the reason to discern and know, but likewise gives to the ideas
of the reason their being and reality. Accordingly as the sun,
in Milton’s phraseology, ‘looks from his sole dominion like the
god’ of this lower world of sense, so the idea of the good, the
sovereign good, even God himself, reigns supreme in the higher
world of ideas, which is cognizable only by the reason.

It does not fall within our province, in writing a history of
Greek literature, to discuss the visionary proposal for the
arrangement of a commonwealth, which forms a distinct feature
in the treatises on the Republic and the Laws. We are willing
to admit that the former at least is a genuine Utopia—a place
which is no place,—and that some of its provisions amount to

1 Resp. VI. p. 507 B.
2 The word Utopia, Οὐτοπία, is formed like Οὐκαλέγων and similar negative
words, and signifies a Weissnichtwo or Kennaguhair; see New Cratylus, § 189.

248 PLATO.

heartless socialism, inconsistent alike with morality and civili-
zation.’ And it is much to be regretted that Plato should have
added these details to a general view of the constitution of man
which approves itself to our best instincts, and is confirmed by
the teaching of Christianity. Leaving these fruitless dreams of
a dissatisfied politician, we have to examine the machinery by
means of which Plato had intended to connect his Republic
with three other dialogues—the Timeus, which is complete, the
Critias, which is a mere fragment, and the Hermocrates, which
is lost. Socrates is supposed to narrate to the interlocutors,
who were to give their names to the other three treatises, a
long conversation which took place at the house of old Cephalus,
the father of Lysias, on the preceding day, when he had gone
down with Glauco to see the Bendideia at the Peirzeus; and,
in return for this, Timeus undertakes to explain how men such
as they ought to be came into being; Critias is to show that
such men really existed, and to describe, on the strength of an
old family record derived from Egypt, the golden age of prime-
val Athens, and the overthrow of the wonderful island of Atlan-
tis; and Hermocrates is to finish with an essay on nature and
nourishment.? We cannot see our way to any explanation,
which will remove the anachronisms and impossibilities from
this dramatic framework. We have already mentioned the
reasons which render it probable that the Republic in its first
form was written or published along with the Gorgias, i.e. soon
after B.c. 395. That it did not then reach its present form,
and was not connected with the other dialogues of the tetralogy,
is shown not only by the story that the beginning was found in

1 The socialism of Plato’s Republic is severely, but by no means fairly or ade-
quately criticized in the first five chapters of Aristotle’s second book of Politics.
A modern writer, Mr. Mitchell, in the preliminary discourse to his translation of
Aristophanes denounces Plato’s fifth book as ‘lying,’ ‘absurd,’ ‘unfeeling,’ and
‘ guilty, —lying, because it makes the useful the measure of the honourable; ab-
surd, because it stifles the natural instincts of humanity; unfeeling, because it
obliterates the domestic affections ; and guilty, because it makes lying a statutable
virtue in the governors. Many of the criticisms on the Republic would be obviated
if we could believe with Morgenstern (Commentat. de Plat. Republica), that it
had no political reference, but was merely an allegory of the human soul, like
Bunyan’s.

5 Timaus, p. 20 A.

MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 249

the author’s tablets, with various transpositions of the words,'
and by the fact that the third dialogue is an unfinished fragment,
and the fourth non-existent, but also by many internal evidences,
such as the Pythagorism, the unmistakeable references to
Dionysius, and the like. There is also a distinct tradition,
preserved by Aulus Gellius, that the Republic originally appeared
in two books only, and in that form was controverted by Xeno-
phon.* But no conclusions respecting the date of the work will
remove the objections to the machinery, otherwise than by the
supposition that at the end of his life Plato’s historical recollec-
tions had become somewhat hazy and indistinct. It has been
mentioned above that the imaginary conversation recorded in
the Republic has been referred by Bockh to the year 411 B.c.;?
and intercourse between Socrates and Critias at this time was
possible enough. But Timzeus, whom Plato had to seek in
Italy, was not very likely to have been at Athens at the time
when the Athenians were in the midst of their difficulties after
the Sicilian disaster ; and it is, of course, quite impossible that
Hermocrates should have been there, when we know he was
commanding a fleet against Athens in the Aigean. C. F. Her-
mann would place the fictitious date of the supposed discourses
about the time of Plato’s birth, in B.c. 429, ὁ.6. in Ol. 87, 2
or 3. But the appearance of Hermocrates at Athens at any
time after the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war involves
the utmost improbability, and an earlier date would not be con-
sistent with the extreme old age of Cephalus,* to say nothing of
the statement of the scholiast on Thucydides, that Hermocrates
was a young man B.c. 415. We can only conclude that Plato
was either very oblivious or very careless of historical verisimi-
litude. His selection of Hermocrates as his mouthpiece is even

1 Quintilian VIII. 6, ὃ 63. Dionys. Halicarnass. De Compositione Verborum,
Ρ. 208, Reiske.

2 Noctes Attice XIV. 3: ‘Xenophon incluto illi operi Platonis, quod de optimo
statu reipublice civitatisque administrande scriptum est, lectis ex eo duobus fere
libris, qui primi in volgus exierant, opposuit contra scripsitque diversum regize
administrationis genus, quod παιδείας Kvpov inscriptum est.’

3 See chapter XXXYV. ὃ 1.

4 Resp. I. p. 328 Εἰ: ἐπειδὴ ἐνταῦθα ἤδη εἶ τῆς ἡλικίας ὃ δὴ ἐπὶ γήραος οὐδῷ φασι
εἶναι οἱ ποιηταί.

ὅ ad Thucyd, VI. 38.

250 PLATO.

less patriotic than his choice of Critias in the character of Jau-
dator temporis acti. But it is very explicable on the supposition
that his frequent visits to Sicily, in spite of the misconduct of
Dionysius, who represented the party of this valiant oligarch,
and had married his daughter, had enabled Plato to form a very
high opinion of his character, and, perhaps, induced him to be-
lieve that, if Hermocrates had succeeded in establishing himself
at Syracuse, he would have introduced a form of government far
superior to that of the Dionysii, and even of Dion.

While the Republic gives us more directly Plato’s solution
of the great problem of moral philosophy, the Philebus is one
of Plato’s critical reviews of the systems of his contemporaries
and predecessors in regard to the chief good of man, which was,
with the ancients, essentially an ethical question. There can be
no doubt that the Repudlic, in its present form, makes direct
reference to the Philebus,’ and we should conclude that the latter
was written expressly as an introduction both to the ethical spe-
culations of the Republic, and to the psychological physics of
the Timeus. The general purport of the Philebus is thus given
by a modern writer :*-—‘ The Pytliagoreans, as interpreted by
the rédacteur of their doctrines, Philolaus, looked upon the
infinite (τὸ ἄπειρον) as the mere rude material element of the uni-
verse, which, naturally devoid of all definite limits, measure, and
rule, must receive its form, and so its positive existence, from the
finite or limiting (τὸ πέρας ἔχον, τὸ περαῖνον, τὸ πεπερασμένον),
which is likewise the natural element. The ideas of finite and
infinite are also, and more commonly, represented by the terms
“the one” and “ the many,” especially in the Platonic philosophy.
Plato, who borrowed the Pythagorean doctrine, but extended
and enlarged its sphere, in his elaborate inquiry into the nature
of the summum bonum in the Philebus, in like manner places
the infinite (or particulars as opposed to general notions), in
which pleasure is found to consist, at the bottom of his gra-
duated scale of moral perfection, the finite (τὸ πέρας ἔχον),
including sciences, arts, and right opinions, occupying the place

1 Resp. VI. p. 505 B, where the οἱ πολλοὶ are Aristippus and the general public to
whose lower views of happiness he pandered, and the κομψότεροι are Eucleides and
his school.

2 Mr. E. M. Cope, in the Cambridge Essays for 1856, p. 146.

MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 951

next above them; the highest place of all being assigned to
“measure, and that which is in-due measure and due season”
(τὸ μέτριον Kai τὸ καίριον), by which Plato seems to mean the
highest and universal moral law, which embraces all subordinate
laws, regulates the entire system of things, and assigns to all
their due place and order’ The doctrines,’ which Plato submits
to his searching criticism in the Philebus, are those of the two
Socratic schools, who took the most opposite views on the sub-
ject of the highest good—the Cyrenaics, who held that it was
pleasure, and the Megarics, who maintained that it was intelli-
gence in its various manifestations. The former are represented
in the dialogue by Philebus and his friend Protarchus, the latter
by an unknown person, probably Eucleides himself. Plato,
speaking in the person of Socrates, maintains that the highest
good is not to be found in either of these states, but in one
which he proceeds to investigate in a most elaborate and com-
plicated argument. First of all he developes the meaning of
‘the One’ and ‘ the Many,’ showing that this formula denotes
the relation of monads (i.e., ideas or universals), to sensibles
(τὰ γιγνόμενα καὶ ἄπειρα), and then argues that it is the dia-
lectician’s first problem to find ‘the One’ in ‘the Many,’ his
second task to find ‘the How Many, or definite quantity in
“the One.’ For example: voice is one, but voices are innu-
merable. And between this One and these innumerables
intervenes a definite number of kinds of voice, which the gram-
marian and musician ascertain and classify. Now the formula
of the One and the Many is equally applicable to the ideas of
pleasure and intelligence, the manifestations of both being
unlimited, but their species limitable. Applying this to the case
before him, Socrates maintains that, as the Good must be con-
ceived as self-sufficing and perfect ; and as neither pleasure nor
intelligence is by itself self-sufficing and perfect, we cannot find
the good in either of them separately, but must seek it in a life

1 For the etymology of καιρός, and its connexion in meaning with μέτρον see our
note on Pindar, Ol. IX. 38, 39, and Varronianus, p. 392 note ; and for Plato’s identi-
fication of μέτρον and καιρός, see Politicus p. 284 E: ὁπόσαι πρὸς τὸ μέτριον καὶ τὸ
πρέπον καὶ τὸν καιρὸν καὶ τὸ δέον καὶ πανθ᾽ ὅποσα εἰς τὸ μέσον ἀπῳκίσθη τῶν ἐσχάτων.

53 Here we have to acknowledge our obligations to Professor Thompson’s
introductory lecture on the Philebus, delivered at Cambridge, in October, 1855.

252 PLATO.

which blends pleasure with intelligence. Consequently this
mixed life is better than either of the other two. But if we
wish to fix the relative places of pleasure and intelligence, we
must start with a tetrad of forms or principles (εἴδη) ; namely :
(1.) πέρας, limit; (2.) ἄπειρον, unlimited; (3.) τὸ ξυμμισγό-
μενον (Ξε γένεσις εἰς οὐσίαν), the concrete, created being, or
procession into being; (4.) αἴτιον, the cause, which makes up
the third by mixing the former two. Now the mixed life is
evidently referable to the third form—that of the genesis, or
coming into being; as pleasure is unlimited in respect to less
and more, the life of pleasure must belong to the second form,
or that of the unlimited; and as intellect plans the order of
the universe, the intellectual life must fall under the fourth
form. ‘By these distinctions,’ says Sydenham,’ ‘ the phi-
losopher leads Protarchus to recognize the superior excellence
of the science of mind above all others—a science conversant in
those subjects only, which are the same for ever. In the third
and last argumentative part of this dialogue, those moral truths
are shown, which it is the whole intent of it to show, in the
following order: the first is, that neither pleasure alone, nor
theoretical wisdom or knowledge alone, is sufficient for the
happiness of any man ; the second is, that the best and happiest of
all human lives is that life in which the best and highest science,
the knowledge of true good, produces the moral virtues; the
third is this, that in a life where pleasure and knowledge are
thus amicably joined, and operate together for the good of the
whole man, symmetry, harmony, and beauty appear throughout ;
the last and highest truth, no less theological than moral, is this,
that the cause of happiness found in such a life is the same with
the cause of harmony, symmetry, and beauty through the uni-
verse ; and the same with the principle and essence of moral
virtue, namely, measure itself and truth itself, the idea of good,
the great object of the divine mind, in which universal idea the
true measures of all things are contained.’

§ 9. The physical speculations of Plato would have very little
interest for us, if we were obliged to regard them as contri-
butions to natural philosophy in the modern sense of the term.

} Translation of the Philebus, London, 1779, pp. 27-29.

PHYSICAL SPECULATIONS. 253

Tt cannot be said, however, that Plato ever proposed to himself
any such object. To him researches into the visible phenomena
of nature had no special value except as enabling him to show
how the idea of law and order and numerical symmetry is to be
detected in the complex machinery of the outer world, so that
here also, we discern the One in the Many, and may separate
science from the province of opinion.

We have some hints as to the manner in which Plato read
the book of nature in the Phedo,’ some in the Republic; his
general views are involved in the argumentation of the Phi-
lebus ;* and he gives us a strangely fanciful theory respecting
the counter revolution of the globe, and its effects on the
inversion of human life, in the Politicus* But his book
expressly written on this subject is the Timeus, which forms
the second part in the intended tetralogy of dialogues begin-
ning with the Repudlic. This work is professedly a fictitious
κοσμοποιΐα, or history of the creation. The contemplation
of mutable nature is taken up as a relaxation and amuse-
ment by the abstract philosopher, and the results assumed
merely pretend to be as probable as any others which have been
stated.© And in freely indulging his fancy, Plato takes as
the basis of his speculations the details which were well known
to the students of natural science in his time. The numerical
system of the Pythagoreans plays a prominent part in the
Timeus ;° he makes direct reference to the theories of Hera-
cleitus, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles; and here, as elsewhere,
the unitarian hypothesis of the Eleatics is subjected to his cri-
ticism.’ Plato, following Parmenides, supposes the existence
of two worlds—the world of matter and the world of mind—the
ὁρατὸς τόπος, or visible world, and the νοητὸς τόπος, or ideal
world—the former being on the model of the latter.2 Now
Plato argues that as the visible world is within the domain of

1 Phedo, pp. 97 C, 98 B. 2 Respubl. X. pp. 614 A—62r A.
3 Philebus, pp. 27 B sqq. 4 Politicus, pp. 269 D seqq.
: 85. Timeus, p. 29 D: ὁ λέγων ἐγὼ ὑμεῖς τε οἱ κριταὶ φύσιν ἀνθρωπίνην ἔχομεν, ὥστε
περὶ τούτων τὸν εἰκότα μῦθον ἀποδεχομένους πρέπει τούτου μηδὲν ἔτι πέρα ζητεῖν.
6. Ibid. p. 34 C sqq.
7 See Professor Thompson’s note on Butler’s Lectwres, II. p. 189.
8 Timeus, p. 29 E sqq. :

254 PLATO.

the senses, it is for this reason one of the things which are
liable to generation and decay. It must therefore have been
created, i.e., it must have come into being. And its maker
could be no other than the One, τὸ ἕν, of the Ionics, and this
is the Entity, τὸ ov, of the Eleatics, which reduced to order the
infinite plurality of visible substances, and so exhibited itself as
the formative principle. From the symmetry and order dis-
cernible in this lower world, it is clear, Plato says, that the
Creator must have constructed it after the model or pattern of
a perfect and eternal world, and in order that this might be
done in the most perfect manner possible, he made it ‘ a living
animal, gifted with intelligence, by enduing it with a living soul.’?
The body of this animal was composed of the four elements (and
here Plato combines and modifies the theories of Empedocles
and Anaxagoras),’? and the soul of the world was not, as the
Eleatic pantheism would have maintained, God himself, but an
emanation and product of that intelligence which is the cause of
' all things.’

Both in the Timeus and in the Philebus Plato speaks of in-
telligence as very near akin to the causative principle. In the
Philebus he says :* ‘ We find that fire, water, air, and earth must
naturally be in the composition of all bodies. These elements,
which we find in individual bodies, receive their being from the
elements which we find in the universe, and this little body of
ours owes its nourishment, and all that it has received or
possesses, to the great body of the world. Now these bodies
of ours are animated by souls; and from whence should they
derive these souls, if the great body of the universe, which has
all the same elements with them, only in far greater purity and
perfection, did not possess a soul as our bodies do? Since then
we admit in all bodies four sorts of being—the limit, the un-
limited, the compound of these, and the cause—and since we
find in the part of the universe to which we belong that there are
causes which create souls, produce health of the body, and effect
cures for diseases of the body, and causes, which put together
other compositions and amend them when impaired, all of these

1 Timeus, p. 30 B. 2 Ibid. pp. 31 B—32 C, 53 C—s56 OC.
3 Jbid. p. 35 A. 4 Philebus, p. 29 A.

DOCTRINE OF NUMBERS. 255

causes having names which betoken some kind of wisdom or
skill,—this being the case, we cannot but think that the whole
heaven, possessing the same four sorts of beings, but possessing
them pure and undepraved, has for its cause the nature of those
things which are most beautiful and noble, a cause which may
most justly be called wisdom and mind; and as wisdom and
mind cannot be without soul, it follows that the world has a
soul and mind from the power of the cause, and that mind is
of the nature of the cause of all things.’ In thus allowing a
cause and beginning to the world, Plato naturally maintained,
in opposition to Parmenides, the reality of time.’ As the
multiplicity of things (τὰ πολλά) presumes the universal (ro
ἕν), and as the limit controls the infinite, so there must be
time as the image and product, the limitation or bound of
eternity. |

The recognition of an analogy between the soul of man and
the soul of the universe, and the perception of a harmony in
each, is naturally connected in Plato’s speculations with the
view of the Pythagoreans that numbers are the principles and
essence of all things, and that the world subsists by a numerical
harmony,’ a view which Heracleitus adopted under a modified
form.’ ‘The system of the heavenly bodies is, according to this
view, represented by the intervals of the musical scale, these
intervals making what is called the Platonic tetractys, branching
from unity on one side by doubling, and on the other side by
trebling the preceding number; thus: 1, 2, 4, 8, and 1, 3, 9,
2η. He estimates the durability of his Republic by a still
more complicated numerical process, involving, however, the
mean proportionals 12 and 18 between the last two terms in
these series, and introducing the γαμήλιον διάγραμμα or right-
angled triangle, of which the sides are 3, 4, and 5.° Even in his
Laws we find that Plato limits his citizens to 5040 ‘ for the sake

1 See Timeeus, pp. 37 A, 38 B, &c.
2 Aristotle, Metaphys. A. I. c. 6, p. 987, Ὁ. 11]

3 Plato, Sympos. p. 187 A. - ‘s
4 See Stallbaum’s note on the Timeus, p. 35 B. The figure Z,
presumed is δ: της “ἢ

5 The writer of these pages has examined the celebrated passage (Respublica,

256 PLATO.

of a fitting number,’’ this number being the continued product
of the first seven digits, a calculation having the same mystical —
value as the discovery that 27, the last of the seven terms in the
double tetractys, is both the sum of the other six terms, and
also equal to the sum of the first six digits after unity. There
is the same sort of arbitrary fancy in the astronomy of Plato,
as exhibited in the Timeus ;? and, on the whole, we must admit,
with a modern writer, that ‘the Timeus is a physical romance,
with a mighty moral.’* At the same time, the speculations of
Plato, wild and fanciful as they seem to us, have very often
made nearer approximations to the truth than the more
elaborate and serious investigations of his pupil Aristotle ; as,
for example, ‘in his notions of a centripetal force, of the causes
of gravity, of antipodes, and of the nullity of the popular dis-
tinction of up and down.’* And if his separate conjectures had
been entirely devoid of truth, or even plausibility, we could not
fail to recognize, as quite worthy of a great philosopher, the
general principles of his theory, and the grand truth with which
he starts, that the moving cause of creation was the unenvying
goodness of the Creator, and His wish that all things should as
far as possible resemble Himself.’

δ το. The style of Plato is in every way worthy of his posi-
tion in universal literature; and the critical taste of modern
scholars has fully confirmed the general encomium of Aristotle,
that ‘all his dialogues exhibit extraordinary acuteness, elabo-
rate elegance, bold originality, and curious speculation.’®

VII. p. 546), ina special essay ‘on Plato’s Number’ in the 7’ransactions of the Phi-

lological Society, Vol. I. No. 8, and has shown that the number itself is 216= 6%,

and that the calculations involved are the proportion 8:12::18:27, and the equa-
3 3 8 8

tions (3 x 8) ΞΞΊΟΟ Χ wand (4 x 5) = EES EAC _ 1000 55.

1 Plato, Leges, V. p. 737: ἀριθμοῦ τινος ἕνεκα προσήκοντος., In the Republic,
1X. p. 587 C, because the tyrant is nine times as wretched as the oligarch, 9° or
729 represents his misery.

2 Timeeus, p. 35 B.

3 Butler’s Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, ΤΙ. 196.

4 Professor Thompson’s note on Butler’s Lectwres, II. p. 171.

5 Timeus, p. 29 D, E.

6 Aristot. Pol. II. 6, 5: τὸ μὲν οὖν περιττὸν ἔχουσι πάντες οἱ τοῦ Σωκράτους λόγοι
καὶ τὸ κομψὸν καὶ τὸ καινοτόμον καὶ τὸ ζητητικόν᾽ καλῶς δὲ πάντα ἴσως χαλεπόν.
The last words show that these expressions are not ironical, Mr, Congreve says,

STYLE AND DICTION. 257

Paneetius used to call him the Homer ofphilosophers,’ and others
declared that, if Jupiter himself had spoken Greek, he would
have adopted the majestic dignity of the Platonic eloquence.’
The celebrated critic, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, though he
reserves the highest stretch of his admiration for Demosthenes,
is inclined to admit that no master of eloquence could success-
fully compete for the second place with Plato.* He considers
him, in fact, as the best example of the middle or mixed style
of composition, which was initiated by Thrasymachus, and
systematically taught and exemplified by Isocrates.* This inter-
mediate or mixed style combined the simple diction of Lysias
with the more ponderous eloquence of Thucydides and Gorgias,
and the process in the case of Plato is thus described by
Dionysius ἢ ‘ He was nurtured in the Socratic dialogues, meagre
and exact as they are in the fullest sense, but did not abide
in them, being enamoured of the language’ of Gorgias and
Thucydides ; accordingly, it is not surprising that he acquired
some of their characteristic faults as well as their excellences.’
The same critic classes the style of Plato with that of Herodotus
and Demosthenes, as exhibiting in the highest degree those
pauses and changes of rhythmical structure, and that variety of
elegant figures, which he considers as the greatest perfections of -
style ;’ and he places the philosopher below the great orator

in his note on the passage: ‘This just and high compliment on his master’s
writings is not easy to translate. It bears witness, if such were needed, to Aris-
totle’s careful study and correct appreciation of their beauties, as well as their
more solid merits. I venture the following translation: All the dialogues of Plato
alike are characterized by brilliancy, grace, originality, and profound inquiry.’

1 Cic, Tuse. Disp. I. 32, ὃ 79.

2 Cic. Brut. 31, § 121: ‘quis enim uberior in dicendo Platone? Jovem aiunt
philosophi, si Greece loquatur, sic loqui.’ Dionys. Hal. de adm. vi dic. in Dem.
xxiii. p. 1024, Reiske: ἤδη δέ τινων ἤκουσα ἐγώ λεγόντων, ws εἰ καὶ παρὰ θεοῖς
διάλεκτός ἐστιν, ἣ τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων κέχρηται γένος, οὐκ ἄλλως ὁ βασιλεὺς ὧν αὐτῶν
διαλέγεται θεὸς []. Ζεὺς] ἢ ὡς Πλάτων.

3 De adm. vi Dem. p. 1043: Πλάτων γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ταῦτα γράφων᾽ ὃς εἰ μὴ καὶ τὰ
πρωτεῖα οἴσεται τῆς λέξεως, περί γε τῶν δευτερείων πολὺν ἀγῶνα παρέξει τοῖς διαμιλ-
λησομένοις.

4 Id. ibid. pp. 958, 1083. 5 Td. ibid. p. 968.

6 κατασκευή, i.e. the apparatus of words as distinguished from their arrangement,
their copia verborum in fact; see above, chapter XXIV. § 3, note.

7 De Compos. Verborum, p. 133.

Vou, 11. 5

258 PLATO.

chiefly because the former departs occasionally from that
judicious choice of words by which Demosthenes is dis-
tinguished. ‘ Plato,’ he says,’ ‘was most admirable in per-
ceiving the harmony and rhythm of style, and if he ‘had been
as excellent in the selection as he was in the composition of his
words, he might have outstripped Demosthenes, or made his
superiority doubtful; as it is, he commits some faults in his
choice of expressions, especially when he aims at ἃ lofty,
elegant, and elaborate (ἐγκατάσκευον) phraseology.’ In comparing
these two masters of Greek eloquence, Dionysius has given us
a very felicitous analogy. ‘It seems to me,’ he says,’ ‘ that we
should not err if we compared the diction of Plato to a meadow
gay with flowers, and furnished with pleasant arbours and
transient gratifications ; whereas, the language of Demosthenes
might be likened to a fruitful field, rich in produce, and want-
ing neither the necessaries of life nor the superfluities of enjoy-
ment.’ Although these remarks of Dionysius will be endorsed
by most of the critical readers of Plato in our days, it will be felt
that in some respects he has not done full justice to the literary
merits of the great philosopher. In Plato the powers of the
imagination were just as conspicuous as those of reasoning and
reflexion; he had all the chief characteristics of a poet, espe-
cially of a dramatic poet; and if his rank as a philosopher had
been lower than it is, he would still have stood unrivalled,
except by Shakspere, in the power of exhibiting dramatically,
and in the form of dialogue, a consistent development of cha-
racter, and so giving to his interlocutors all that is required in
a lifelike representation of the personages whose opinions he
wishes to combat or defend. The slightest touch sometimes lends
a finish to the picture, as when the equestrian Antipho is found
in the act of ordering a bit,* or the bare-footed Socrates either
in his ordinary* or his exceptional attire.» The more elaborate
and fanciful pictures which he introduces are not less remark-
able for their descriptive power, than the dramatic incidents are
for their vivid reality. Nothing can be better told than the

1 De Compos. Verborum, p. 117. ? De adm. vi dic. in Dem. p. 1056.
3 Parmenides, p. 127 A. 4 Phedrus, p. 229 A.
ὅ Sympos. p. 174 A.

STYLE AND DICTION. 259

strange story of the world’s inverted rotation in the Politicus,'
or the allegory of the cavern,’ and the tale of Er, the Armenian,
in the Republic? or the fable about the soul’s state after
death in the Gorgias.* The periodical structure of the sentence
in Plato is principally distinguished by an intentional laxity, and
by the frequent introduction of explanatory circumstances,
which, either following or preceding the main predication, give
to the whole an appearance of grammatical irregularity... Many
of the peculiarities of Plato’s style are due to his adoption
of the language of ordinary conversation, with its conventional.
words and phrases, and its abrupt transitions.. He has few
technical words, and none of any importance, except the terms
by which he designates the typical forms of things and the
general conceptions by which they are represented in the mind.’

1 Polit. p. 269 D sqq. 2 Resp. VII. pp. 514—517 B.

3 Thid. X. pp. 614 A—6ar A. 4. Gorg. pp. 523 A—526 C.

5 See Dissen’s Essay de structwrd periodorum oratorid prefixed to his edition of
Demosthenes De Corond, pp. LXX. sqq.

6 As for example his use of αὐτίκα, πολλάκις for lows, κινδυνεύω for ἔοικα, ἄλλοτι
for ἄλλο τι ἤ, his asyndeton in the adverb πάντως, &e.

7 In Plato’s language εἶδος is the mental apprehension, and ἰδέα its counterpart
in nature, but the words are often used as synonyms. See Professor Thompson’s
note on Butler’s Lectures, vol. II., p. 127.

s 2

260

CHAPTER XL.

ARISTOTLE.

§ 1. Life of Aristotle. § 2. General view of his writings. § 3. His metaphysics
and psychology. § 4. Logic. § 5. Rhetoric and criticism. § 6. Moral philo-
sophy. § 7. Politics. § 8. Natural history and general physics. ὃ 9. Mis-
cellanies, ὃ 10, Form and style of his writings.

δι. ‘TP\HE Master of them that know,’ as Dante calls Aris-

totle,’ occupies a position among the leaders of human
thought, scarcely inferior to that which we have claimed for his
teacher Plato. Indeed, one modern writer has not hesitated to
say that every man is born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian,’
meaning by this that Plato and Aristotle represented the two
modes in which men philosophize, if they philosophize at all.
It would, however, be more true to say, historically, that the
influence of Aristotle’s writings has been felt directly or in-
directly, wherever it is not anticipated or superseded by a
method of reasoning which may be traced back to his great
teacher. To treat, therefore, of Aristotle in a manner suitable to
his importance, would involve a distinct literary effort not less con-
siderable than that which would be implied in a similar treatment
of Plato’s writings ; and there are not a few works on the subject
to which the student might be referred with great profit to him-
self.2 For our present purpose it is sufficient to deal with the

1 Inferno, IV. 131:

Vidi "1 maestro di color che sanno
Seder tra filosofica famiglia:
Tutti ’ammiran, tutti onor gli fanno.

2 Coleridge, Table Talk (July 2nd, 1830, I. p. 182): ‘ Every man is born an Aris-
totelian or a Platonist. I do not think it possible that any one born an Aristotelian
can become a Platonist ; and I am sure no born Platonist can ever change into an
Aristotelian. They are the two classes of men, beside which it is next to impossible
to conceive athird, The one considers reason a quality or attribute; the other con-
siders it a power. I believe that Aristotle never could get to understand what
Plato meant by an idea.’

3 As for example, the works of Stahr, Jourdain, and Brandis,

LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 261

questions of literary history which are involved in a general
survey of Aristotle’s life and labours. Ξ
The materials for Aristotle’s life are very scanty, and all the
ancient biographies of the philosopher are full of exaggerations
and misstatements. Nevertheless the dates are tolerably accu-
rate, and we can form to ourselves a general picture of his
career which is sufficient for all the purposes of literary history.’
Aristotle’s life may be divided into five epochs; the first in-
cludes the period of his boyhood and youth; the second, his
residence at Athens, as a pupil of Plato; the third, his three
years’ sojourn at Assos after Plato’s death ; the fourth, his esta-
blishment in Macedonia, as tutor to Alexander; and the fifth,
his final settlement at Athens, as a teacher, during the last
thirteen years of his life.
᾿ First Period—Anistotie was born at Stageirus, or Stageira,
one of the Chalcidian cities on the Strymonian gulf. Originally
an Andrian colony, it had received an accession of population
from Chalcis, in Eubcea, and though not in itself a place of any
importance, it was a member of the Olynthian league, and
shared in the destruction of those Greek cities which resisted
the ambition of Philip. Aristotle’s father, Nicomachus, be-
longed to the clan or guild of the Asclepiads, and was therefore
a member of a family in which the medical profession was here-
ditary.? His skill as a practitioner and his reputation as a
man of science had recommended him to Amyntas, the father
of Philip, at whose court he lived as the king’s medical ad-
viser and confidential friend. Phzestis, the mother of Aris-
. totle, was descended from one of the Chalcidian colonists of
Stageirus, and it is worthy of remark that Aristotle died at

1 Tn the account of Aristotle’s career which is given in the text, the author feels
that he is greatly indebted to the admirable lectures on the Hthics and Politics
which Dr. Thirlwall delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1833, and which
were prefaced by an elaborate discussion of Aristotle’s literary history. Mr.
Blakesley, who probably enjoyed the advantage of hearing these lectures, published,
in 1839, a very clear and able Life of Aristotle, including a critical discussion
of some questions of literary history connected with his works. To this book the
writer has occasionally referred with much profit. And he has had before him
Stahr’s Aristotelia (Halle, 1830), which is quite a storehouse of materials.

2 See below, chapter XLIV. ὃ 2.

3 Diogenes says: cuvveBiw ᾿Αμύντᾳ τῷ Μακεδόνων βασιλεῖ ἰατροῦ καὶ φίλου χρείᾳ.

262 ARISTOTLE.

Chalcis, the metropolis of his maternal relatives. Aristotle was
born in Ol. 99, 1. B.c. 384, two years before his great contem-
porary Demosthenes,’ and he died in the same year with that
orator and his rival Hypereides. We do not know when his
parents died. It appears that they were dead when he went to
Athens, at the age of eighteen, and it is also probable that he
had lost both his father and mother at a much earlier period ;

_ for we are told that he was for some little time under the guar-
dianship of one Proxenus of Atarneus. That his education
was at least partly undertaken by his father may be inferred
from the fact that he had acquired some practical acquaintance
with the hereditary art of medicine ; and the partiality, which
he exhibited in his later years, for all subjects connected with
natural history, may have been due to his early initiation into
this branch of study. His estate must have been well managed,
for we find him, as a young man, at Athens, living in perfect
leisure, and not only so, but able to collect books, to dress well,
and indulge in gaiety and luxury. He retained a deep sense
of the obligations conferred upon him by his guardian, for he
afterwards adopted Nicanor, the son of Proxenus, and appointed
him joint guardian with Antipater of his own son Nicomachus.
And his will gives directions for the setting up of a statue in
honour of Proxenus and his wife.

Second Period.—Without noticing the contradictory accounts
that have been given of Aristotle’s early life——that he squan-
dered his property, and became a soldier or a vender of medi-
cines,*—we pass on to the first visit to Athens in B.c. 367, when
Plato had just started on his second journey to Sicily. This.
latter circumstance explains the statement of Ammonius that.
Aristotle first studied under Socrates, a statement obviously

1 This is the usual opinion, adopted by Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, p. 104. Other
scholars have come to the conclusion that the great orator and the great philoso-
pher were born in the same year. See Stahr, Avristotelia, p. 31 ; Thirlwall, ‘On the
birth year of Demosthenes,’ Philol. Mus. II. pp. 389 qq.

2 Atheneus VIII. p. 354; Allian, V.H. V. 9; Aristocles apud Euseb. Prep.
£v. XV. 2, p. 791 A.: πῶς yap οἷόν τε νέον μὲν ὄντα καταφαγεῖν αὐτὸν Thy πατρῴαν
οὐσίαν, ἔπειτα δὲ ἐπὶ τὸ στρατεύεσθαι συνῶσαι, κακῶς δὲ πράττοντα ἐν τούτοις ἐπὶ
τὸ φαρμακοπωλεῖν ἐλθεῖν, ἔπειτα ἀναπεπταμένου τοῦ Πλάτωνος περιπάτου πᾶσι
παραβαλεῖν αὐτόν ; ἤ πῶς ἄν τις ἀποδέξαιτο Τιμαίου τοῦ Ταυρομενείτου λέγοντος
ἐν ταῖς ἱστορίαις ἀδόξου θύρας αὐτὸν ἰατρείου καὶ τὰς τυχούσας ὀψὲ τῆς ἡλικίας
κλεῖσαι;

LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 263°

inconsistent with chronology, but quite explicable on the sup-
position that the story meant to inform us, that he studied in
the school of Socrates, and not under Plato in the first instance.
For in Plato’s absence his school was conducted by Hera-
cleides of Pontus, and Aristotle may have received his first
lessons from this Socratic philosopher.' There is no doubt,
however, that on Plato’s return, Aristotle became his regular
hearer, and indeed the chief ornament of his school. That the
characters of the master and pupil were quite uncongenial, and
their intellectual tendencies diametrically opposed, is sufficiently
well known. But beyond this there is no foundation for the
report that Plato and Aristotle were personally on bad terms,
and that the latter was not only unfriendly but ungrateful to his
teacher. On the one hand, it is clear that Plato used to
express a very high opinion of Aristotle, whom he called ‘the
soul of his school,’? and whose house he designated as ‘ the house
of the reader.’* On the other hand, we are told that Aristotle
erected an altar to Plato after his death, with an inscription
describing him as ‘a man whom the bad could not even praise
without sacrilege ;’* and in opposing the Platonic doctrine of
ideas in a passage of the Nicomachean Ethics, which has
become proverbial as an expression of the duty of preferring
our conscience to our private predilections,’ Aristotle says ° that
he feels himself obliged to enter on this discussion, ‘ although

1 Mr. Blakesley (p. 18, note) supposes that Xenocrates was mentioned as Aris-
totle’s first instructor, and that his name has been carelessly or officiously altered
into that of Socrates.

3 νρῦς τῆς SiarpiBfs(Philoponus, De eternitate mundi adversus Proclum).

3 οἶκος ἀναγνώστου, Pseudo-Ammonius.

4 Βωμὸν᾽ Ἀριστοτέλης ἐνιδρύσατο τόνδε Πλάτωνος
ἀνδρὸς ὃν οὐδ᾽ αἰνεῖν τοῖσι κακοῖσι θέμις.

5 The usual form of the proverb is ‘Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis
amica veritas.’ It is stated that Plato himself used to confess: gids μὲν
Σωκράτης, ἀλλὰ φιλτάτη ἡ ἀλήθεια. He makes Socrates remark (in the Phedo, p.
gt B): σμικρὸν φροντίσαντες Σωκράτους, τῆς δὲ ἀληθείας πολὺ μᾶλλον. And healso
says, in the Republic, X. p. 595 B: καὶ τοι φιλέα γέ τίς με καὶ αἰδὼς ἐκ παιδὸς
ἔχουσα περὶ Ὁμήρου ἀποκωλύει λέγειν---ἀλλ᾽ οὐ γὰρ πρό γε τῆς ἀληθείας τιμητέος͵
ἀνήρ, which is just the sentiment expressed by Aristotle. Probably this passage
or that in the Phedo was the reference which Stahr could not recal (p. 59).

6 Ethica Nicom. Τ. 6,8 τ. Mr. Blakesley suggests that the phrase τὰ οἰκεῖα
ἀναιρεῖν is an allusion to such cases as that of Iphigenia (p. 27); others suppose
that the philosopher is referring to opinions, not to persons.

264 ARISTOTLE.

the inquiry is repugnant to our feelings, because the doctrine
of ideas was introduced by persons whom we regard with affee-
tion (φίλους ἄνδρας) ; but it would seem to be better, and indeed
our duty, to sacrifice even our own children for the vindication
of truth, especially as we are philosophers; for between two
friends it is a religious obligation to prefer the truth.’ There could
have been no animosity in the mind of a man who approached
a speculative discussion in such a spirit as this. The story that
Xenocrates was mixed up in a quarrel between Plato and Aris-
totle is sufficiently refuted by the circumstance that, after the
death of the former, Aristotle and Xenocrates travelled together
at Atarneus.

During the period of nearly twenty years which Aristotle
spent at Athens, he was not merely a hearer of Plato and a
learner. ‘The house of the reader’ fully justified its name ;
- Aristotle was engaged continually in the most profound and
varied studies, and was laying the foundations of that encyclo-
peedia of learning, which he considered it as his special vocation
to elaborate. It was at this time, in all probability, that he
drew up his lost work on the various systems of rhetoric which
had appeared before his time.’ Perhaps, too, he now wrote his
book on the principles of government adopted by different
states,’ and commenced, at all events, his grand historico-political
work on the Constitutions of 255 different Commonwealths.’
Anecdotes are preserved which tell of his intense application
to his studies. But he was anything but a book-worm, and in
his hours of relaxation he exhibited an attention to dress and
a love of pleasure, which were not usually observed in pro-
fessed philosophers. He was a public teacher, too, as well as a
writer ; and it seems that he adopted the profession of a rhetori-
cian, which was the ostensible avocation of the Sophists, and was
then practised with eminent success by ‘ the old man eloquent,’
Isocrates. Indeed it is stated, and we see no reason to doubt

1 Συναγωγὴ Τεχνῶν. Cic. de Oratore, 11, 38, de Inventione, II. 2. The nature
of such a work is well exemplified by Spengel’s essay under the same title ; Stutt-
gardt, 1828.

2 Δικαιώματα πολέων, Diog. Laért. V. 26.

3 See Neumann, Aristotelis Rerumpublicarum Reliquiw, reprinted in. the
Oxford edition of Aristotle’s works, vol. X. pp. 233 sqq.

LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 265

the truth of the story, that Aristotle set up his rhetorical school
in direct opposition to that of Isocrates.' Cicero says distinctly’
that ‘when Aristotle saw Isocrates flourishing and surrounded
by the most illustrious pupils, having-transferred his disputa-
tions from forensic and popular subjects to the mere cultivation
of an elegant style, he suddenly changed the whole form of his
teaching, and by a slight alteration in a verse of the Philoctetes,
where the poet said: “ it was disgraceful to hold one’s peace,
and suffer barbarians,’—he said: “and suffer Isocrates to
speak.” Accordingly, he adorned and embellished the whole
science of rhetoric, and combined a knowledge of things with
the practice of speaking.’ The celebrated quotation in refer-
ence to Isocrates, thus put into the mouth of Aristotle, is taken
from a scene in the Philoctetes of Euripides, in which an em-
bassy from Troy offers that hero the throne; and when the
foreign orator has concluded his speech, Ulysses begins his
reply by saying, that, whatever may be his deficiencies, yet, on
behalf of the Greek armament, it is disgraceful to leave all the
speaking to a barbarian. And though the Stagirite, himself a
resident alien at Athens, could not with propriety. class the
native Athenian Isocrates with the un-Greek orator of the
play, still he may have regarded the affected style of the veteran
rhetorician as tending to corrupt the purity of the Hellenic
idiom, and so he might say—combining in one sentence both
the word which he omitted and the proper name which he

substituted :—
When Greece at large demands a bold reply,
*Tis great disgrace to sit in silence by,
᾿ And leave Isocrates unchecked to teach
The outlandish jargon of his fulsome speech.

1 See Spengel, Συναγωγὴ Τεχνῶν, p. 167 544.

2 De Oratore, III. 35, ὃ 141 (ef. Orator. c. 13. Quintil. Znst. Or. TIT. 1, 14).
Cicero’s words are: ‘Itaque ipse Aristoteles, quum florere Isocratem nobilitate
discipulorum videret, quod ipse suas disputationes a caussis forensibus et civilibus
ad inanem sermonis elegantiam transtulisset, mutavit repente totam formam
prope disciplinz sux, versumque quendam Philoctetze paullo secus dixit. Tle
enim twrpe sibi ait esse tacere, quum barbaros ; hic autem quum Jsocratem pateretur
dicere. Itaque ornavit et illustravit doctrinam illam omnem rerumque cogni-
tionem cum orationis exercitatione conjunxit.’

3 Plutarch, Moral. p. 1108 B, Diog. Laért. V. 3. The words are:

ὑπέρ ye μέντοι παντὸς Ελλήνων στρατοῦ
αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾶν, βαρβάρους δ᾽ ἐὰν λέγειν,

266. ARISTOTLE.

For he may have considered the rhetoric of Isocrates as de-
praved by some of the florid ornaments of the Sophistie schools,
and it must be admitted that even the language of this pupil of
Gorgias and Tisias is not always free from a taint of foreign
idiom, which is shown in the occasional adoption of unusual
forms and inflexions. The other story, that it was Xenocrates,
and not Isocrates, whom he introduced into this sarcastic
parody, is set aside by the friendly relations between him and
that teacher, and by the inapplicability of the verse to any but
an orator. It seems, too, that in his treatise on rhetorical
systems he handled Isocrates very severely, insomuch that the
rhetorician’s scholar, Cephisodorus, or Cephisodotus, thought it
necessary to come forward in his defence with a treatise in four
books, which not only met the criticisms but attacked the
moral character of the assailant... Why, with all this, Aristotle
so often quotes from Isocrates in his later treatise on rhetoric,
we shall see when we come to speak of that work.

Third Period.—On the death of Plato, in .c. 347, but not
necessarily in consequence of that event, Aristotle accepted an
invitation from Hermias, the tyrant of Atarneus and Assos, to
visit him in one of those Mysian cities. Hermias, who had
been the eunuch, and probably chief minister, of Eubulus, a
Bithynian banker who had established an independent mo-
narchy in Mysia, had spent some time at Athens, and had
studied there under Plato and Aristotle ;? and his invitation to
Aristotle, in which Xenocrates was no doubt included, probably
originated in a wish for literary society and a renewed acquain-
tance with his two fellow-students. Their residence at the
court of Hermias was of short duration. In .Β.0. 345 the
Persians, under a Rhodian captain of mercenaries, named
Mentor, advanced against Atarneus; Hermias was decoyed by
the treacherous promises of this leader, sent up to Susa and
strangled there; and his cities fell into the hands of the
Persians.*? The two philosophers made their escape to Myti-
lene, taking with them Pythias, the sister and adopted daughter

1 Aristocles apud Euseb. Pr. Zv. II. p. 792 A; Athenzus, II. p. 60 E.
3 Strabo, XIII. p. 126.
3 Strabo, οὐδὲ supra ; Diodor. XVI. 52-54.

LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 267

of Hermias, whom Aristotle married in gratitude and friendship,
and in order to protect her under the destitution in which the
death of Hermias had left her.’ This connexion. exposed
Aristotle to the most virulent calumny, and he was obliged to
explain and defend his marriage in a letter to Antipater, which
is still extant; and does him the greatest credit. Pythias died
not long after, leaving Aristotle one daughter, and it is a touching
circumstance that, in his will, he directs the bones of his wife to
be taken up and laid in his grave, wherever he might be buried,
according, as. he says, to her injunctions. He honoured ~the
memory of Hermias in a scoliwm, or drinking-song in praise of
virtue, which is still extant,? and also erected a statue to his
memory. at Delphi, with an inscription stating how he had been
slain, not in open fight, ‘ but because he had trusted to the
honour of a perfidious villain.’*

Fourth Period.—While residing at Mytilene, in B.c. 343,
Aristotle received from Philip of Macedon, with whom he had
some previous acquaintance, and to whom he was at all events
recommended by the intimacy between Amyntas and Nico-
machus, an invitation to go to Pella, and undertake the literary
education of Alexander, who was at that time thirteen years
old. This charge lasted about three years. The previous
teachers of the young prince had been Lysimachus, an Acar-
nanian, and Leonidas, a relation of his mother Olympias; the
latter a. rough soldier, and the former. a dexterous_ flatterer.
Under the discipline of the one he gained the contempt of
danger and luxury which always distinguished him; under the
management of the other he became intolerant of the truth,

1 Aristocles apud Eusebium, ubi supra. In the letter to Antipater, the per-
sonal qualities of Pythias are mentioned as an additional reason for the marriage ;
Aristotle says she was σώφρων καὶ ἀγαθή, and the circumstance mentioned in the
text shows that her husband was really attached to her.

2 Athenzus, p. 696; Stobeus, Serm. I. -p..2; Diog. Laért. V. 2. He com-
pares his hero to Hercules, the Dioscori, Achilles, and Ajax: ‘they died for thee,
O virtue, and for the sake of thy dear form he, too, who_was reared in the lap of
Atarneus, renounced the bright beams of the sun.’

3 The inscription runs thus (Anthol. Pal. appendix 8) :—

Τόνδε ποτ᾽, οὐχ ὁσίως παραβὰς μακάρων θέμιν ἁγνήν,
ἔκτείνεν ἹΤερσῶν τοξοφόρων βασιλεύς,

οὐ φανερῶς λόγχῃ φονίοις ἐν ἀγῶσι κρατήσας
ἀλλ᾽ ἀνδρὸς πίστει χρησάμενος δολίου.

268 ARISTOTLE.

and eager for servile compliances, even to the extent of deifi-
cation. From neither of them could he get much of literature
or philosophy. All his love of books and science was due to
the better tastes with which Aristotle inspired him. He might
have got to the Punjab without the education which he had re-
ceived from Leonidas and Lysimachus, for he had all the ele-
ments of a conqueror in his nature. But it was Aristotle who
made him what Plutarch describes him as being—a lover of
language, learning, and literature. It was Aristotle’s corrected
edition of the Iliad which was Alexander’s travelling companion,
and was placed with his dagger under his pillow at night.2 The
literary tastes which Aristotle instilled into him are exhibited
in the letter to Harpalus, in which Alexander, at that time in
the extremity of Asia, requests that a collection of historical,
dramatic, and lyrical works should be sent to him.* That
Aristotle had introduced. Alexander to the more abstruse parts
of philosophy is shown by the celebrated letter in which the
king complains of the publication of the esoteric works.‘ It is
clear too that Aristotle took great pains to enlarge Alexander’s
ideas of government. For this purpose he wrote for him a
treatise on monarchy. Not that Alexander’s liberal policy is to
be referred to the influence of the philosopher. On the contrary,
Plutarch tells us that Alexander’s attempt to amalgamate the
Greeks and barbarians was in spite of the advice of Aristotle,
who recommended him to treat the Greeks like a general
(ἡγεμονικῶς) and the barbarians like a master (δεσποτικῶς),
and in his Politics Aristotle recognizes an essential distinction
between the Hellenic world and all without it. In the in-
structions which he gave to his illustrious pupil,’ Aristotle did
not forget his hereditary profession of medicine, which the king

1 Plutarch (Vita Alexandri, c. 8), attributes this to Alexander’s natural dis-
position: ἣν δὲ καὶ pices φιλολόγος καὶ φιλομαθὴς καὶ φιλαναγνώστης. But these
tastes are acquired and not inherent.

2 Plutarch, c. 8, on the authority of Onesicritus.

3 The books sent to him were the works of Philistus, many of the tragedies of
Euripides, Sophocles, and Auschylus, and the dithyrambs of Telestes and
Philoxenus (Plutarch, whi supra).

4 Plutarch, Vita Alex. c. 7; Aulus Gellius, WV. A. XX. 5.

5 Plutarch, De Vitd et Fort. Alexandri, p. 329.

6 Plutarch, Vita Alex. c. 8: δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ τὸ φιλιατρεῖν ᾿Αλεξάνδρῳ προσ-

LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 269

sometimes practised for the benefit of his friends; and it seems
that Alexander had a decided predilection for natural history
in general.

Aristotle made use of his influence with Philip to induce
him to rebuild his native city of Stageirus, and to restore it to
more than its former splendour. Plutarch says that he built
a temple to the Nymphs, which served for a Lyceum.’ Aris-
totle drew up a constitution for the resuscitated community,’
and occasionally retired thither from Pella. There were some
walks and seats at Stageirus called after Aristotle, and in after-
times the inhabitants celebrated an annual festival called the
Aristotelia.*

It is not probable that the tuition of Alexander lasted more
than two or three years. When about sixteen the young prince
had sovereign power at court during the absence of Philip. He
fought at Cheroneia in 338 B.c., and afterwards engaged in
state intrigues till his father’s death in 336 B.c., so that the
connexion between the tutor and pupil could not have been
uninterrupted after the latter had attained his sixteenth year.
Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander to Asia, Marsyas, the
brother of Antigonus, afterwards king of Lycia and Pamphylia,
and Theophrastus, Aristotle’s successor at Athens, were either
fellow-pupils of Alexander, or at least received some instruction
from Aristotle at this time.‘

Fifth Period—When Alexander crossed the Hellespont, in
B.c. 334, Aristotle returned to Athens. We are told that the
Athenians invited him on the death of Speusippus, and as his
friend Xenocrates was established at the Academy, Aristotle
opened his school in a gymnasium called the Lyceum, from the
neighbouring temple and grove of Apollo Lyceus; and here
he used to deliver his lessons, not sitting down, but walking to
and fro ;? and from these lounges or saunters (περίπατοι), his
scholars were called the peripatetics, or saunterers.° Aulus

τρίψασθαι μᾶλλον ἑτέρων ᾿Αριστοτέλης᾽ οὐ γὰρ μόνον τὴν θεωρίαν ἠγάπησεν ἀλλὰ Kal
νοσοῦσιν ἐβοήθει τοῖς φίλοις, K.T.d.

1 Vita Alex. ¢. 7. 2 Plut. adv. Colot. ad fin.

3 Pseudo-Ammonius and Vita Latina.

4 Suidas, s.v. Mapovas ; Diog. Vita Theophrasti, 39.

5 Cicero, Academ. Post. I. 4.

® Diogenes (V. p. 301 C, Casaubon), says that Aristotle got into the practice of

270 ARISTOTLE.

Gellius gives us some interesting particulars respecting the orga-
nization of this school. There were two classes of pupils. The
morning lounge (ἑωθινὸς περίπατος) was designed only for the
higher and more advanced students, and at the evening saunter
(δειλινὸς περίπατος) he used to give a more popular lecture for
the benefit of those who had not passed through the preparatory
discipline. The former of these were called acroamatic dis-
courses, and comprised theological, physical, and dialectical in-
vestigations ; the latter were termed the ewoleric discourses, and
comprehended rhetoric, sophistic disputations, and politics." We
do not know whether his lectures were formal, or merely con-
versational ; but we may infer that he did not adopt the cate-
chetical method to any great extent. To keep up a friendly
and instructive imtercourse with his hearers, Aristotle had
periodical entertainments after the manner of Xenocrates, and
at these banquets of the wise there were rules for decency of
dress and decorum of manner which contrasted favourably with
the noisy vulgarity of the usual Greek symposium.’ He also
imitated Xenocrates in the institution of scholastic disputations
under the presidency of a moderator, who held office for ten
days.’ This practice formed the basis of the teaching and
examination in the universities of Europe during the middle
ages, and it is not yet extinct at Cambridge.

It was during this second residence at Athens that Aristotle
composed most of his extant works. And his situation during
the greater part of the time must have been very enviable. We
are told by Athenzeus that Alexander placed at his disposal, prin-
cipally with a view to his collections in natural history, a sum of
no less than 800 talents, about £200,000 of our money ;* Pliny
informs us that some thousands of mén were employed by
Alexander to procure specimens for his museum, and the ma-
terials for his great work, and that Aristotle wrote fifty volumes

teaching while taking his exercise, from his habit of walking about with Alexander
during his convalescence after some illness, ὅτε ἐκ νόσου περιπατοῦντι ᾿Αλεξάνδρῳ
συμπαρὼν διελέγετο ἄττα.

1 Aulus Gellius (Woctes Atticw, XX. 5), is our only authority for this statement.

2 Atheneus, p. 186.

3 Diog. Laért. V. 4, p. 302 C: ἐν τῇ σχολῇ νομοθετεῖν μιμούμενον Zevoxpdrny,
ὥστε κατὰ δέκα ἡμέρας ἄρχοντα ποιεῖν.

4 IX. p. 398 Ἐ,

LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 271

on the subject.' That these inquiries in natural history had
commenced at an earlier period is indicated by Ailian’s state-
ment? that Philip had supplied Aristotle with money for the
prosecution of these researches. But these happy days of sun-
shine and tranquillity were destined to be speedily overcast. On
the one hand it is clear that some estrangement of Alexander
from Aristotle took place towards the end of the philosopher’s
stay at Athens ;* and on the other hand, his residence in this
city was suddenly terminated by the threat of a prosecution for
impiety, which might have produced a second edition of the
death of Socrates. The misunderstanding with Alexander
seems to have been connected with the downfall of his pupil
and relative Callisthenes, who had accompanied the king to
Asia. This Callisthenes, who was a rhetorician of considerable
ability, but sadly deficient in common sense,‘ had opposed him-
self to Anaxarchus, and the other flatterers who followed in the
train of the Macedonian conqueror, and gave expression to his
opinions with an unreserved and offensive bluntness, which was,
under the circumstances, eminently imprudent.’ He also
allowed himself to talk very foolishly to Alexander’s pages,
which led to his implication in their conspiracy against the
king.’ According to some he was put to death by Alexander’s
express orders.’ Others say that he was abandoned to his
enemies, in whose hands he perished by violence or neglect.*
Now it seems that for some reason Alexander connected Aris-
totle with the unjustifiable language of his kinsman; perhaps
because Callisthenes had hinted to Philotas, one of the pages,
that Athens would furnish a safe refuge to tyrannicides ;? perhaps
Alexander’s mind had been poisoned by Olympias, who was vio-
lently opposed to Aristotle’s friend Antipater. Plutarch men-
tions a letter from Alexander to Antipater, in which he alludes

1 Hist. Nat. VIII. 17. 2 Var. Hist. TV. το.

8 The words of Aristotle in the Nicom. Eth. VIII. 7, where he speaks of too
great inequality as a bar to friendship, have been supposed to refer to the interrup-
tion of his friendly relations with Alexander.

4 Aristotle is reported to have said of him: ὅτε Καλλισθένης λόγῳ μὲν ἣν δυνατὸς
καὶ μέγας, νοῦν δ᾽ οὐκ εἶχεν. (Hermippus apud Plut. vit. Alex. c. 54.)

5 Plutarch, ὁ. 52. 6 Arrian, IV. 13, 14.
7 Curtius, VIII. 8, ὃ 21. 8 Plutarch, c. 55.
9. Idem, ibid.

272 ARISTOTLE.

to the conspiracy of the pages, and states that they had been
stoned by the Macedonians, but that he intended to punish the
Sophist, and those who had sent him out, and those in the cities
who had harboured conspirators against him.’ The same bio-
grapher tells us, on the authority of Chares, that Alexander in-
tended to have Callisthenes re-tried in the presence of Aristotle.
Be this as it may, Alexander took no steps against Aristotle,
and the story that the philosopher availed himself of the fact
that one of Antipater’s sons was Alexander’s cup-bearer, to
poison him with the water of the Styx, is a silly fiction? On
the contrary, it is obvious that the death of Alexander rendered
Aristotle’s position at Athens less secure, and exposed him to
risk of religious persecution. Eurymedon, the hierophant, aided
by Demophilus, indicted him for blasphemy, on the pretext that he
had paid divine honours to Hermias, and his own wife Pythias.*
The charge was contemptible in itself, but Aristotle knew that
the Macedonian party at Athens had lost the power to protect
him, and that it would be easy enough to induce the Athenians
to treat him as they had treated Socrates. ‘ Let us not give
them,’ he said, ‘a second opportunity of committing sacrilege
against philosophy.’ Accordingly, he retired betimes with all
his property, not forgetting his batterie de cuisine,’ to Chalcis in
Eubeea, the native place of his maternal ancestors, where, no
doubt, he had some personal friends. In his absence the
Athenians rescinded a decree which had been made in his
honour, and added the insulting imputation that he had acted
as a Macedonian spy.’ This derogatory treatment he received
in a spirit worthy of a great philosopher. ‘My mind is so
constituted,’ he said, ‘ that I neither care very much about these
things, nor on the other hand do I altogether disregard them.’®

1 Idem, ibid. : οἱ μὲν παῖδες ὑπὸ τῶν Μακεδόνων κατελεύσθησαν᾽ τὸν δὲ σοφιστὴν
ἐγὼ κολάσω καὶ τοὺς ἐκπέμψαντας αὐτὸν καὶ τοὺς ὑποδεχομένους ταῖς πόλεσι τοὺς ἐμοὶ
ἐπιβουλεύοντας.

2 Diodorus, XTX. 11. Plutarch, οὐδὲ supra.

3 Phavorinus apud Diog. 5, p. 303 Ὁ. Milian, Var. Hist. III, 36. Aristocles
apud Euseb. Prep. Ev. XV. 2. Origen 6. Celswm I, p. 51.

4 Tt is said that he took no less than 75 copper saucepans to Chalcis (Aristocles
apud Eusebium, ubi supra). 5 Aristocles, u.s.

_ 8. Mlian, Var. Hist. XIX. 1: οὕτως ἔχω ws μήτε μοι σφόδρα μέλειν ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν
μήτε μηδὲν μέλειν. ᾿

GENERAL VIEW OF HIS WRITINGS. 273

It was in B.c. 323 that Aristotle retired to Eubcea, and he lived
there only a few months, for he died of some illness, probably
a disease of the intestines,’ in the following year, shortly after
his great contemporary Demosthenes, also an exile from Athens,
was obliged to save himself from a worse fate by taking poison
at Calauria. It is scarcely worth while to notice the absurd
stories that Aristotle also committed suicide by drinking hemlock,
or by throwing himself into the Euripus, because he could not
discover the cause of the seven tides there. By his wife Pythias
he left behind him a daughter named after her mother, who
married (1.) Nicanor, son of Proxenus, and adopted son of
Aristotle; (2.) Procles, a lineal descendant of the Spartan
king Demaratus, by whom she had two sons, Procles and De-
maratus, both scholars of Theophrastus; (3.) Metrodorus, a
physician, by whom she had a son called Aristotle. Aristotle
also left an infant son called Nicomachus, by his concubine
Herpyllis; he became a scholar of Theophrastus, and died in
battle at an early age.

An abstract of Aristotle’s will, or a codicil to it, is preserved
by Diogenes. It is a very interesting document. It makes no
mention of his literary property and his valuable library, which
Strabo tells us* were left to Theophrastus. Antipater, Theo-
phrastus, and four others are designated as provisionary execu-
tors, until Nicanor’s return to take possession.

Aristotle’s person is described by Timotheus.* He had some
bodily defects or deformities, and made the most of himself by
a diligent attention to his dress. In fact, he was no Cynic.
Tn his private character he was extremely amiable and exemplary.
His worth as a philosopher will be best exhibited if we take a
general survey of his writings.

§ 2. In looking at a mere catalogue of the works of Aristotle,
we must be struck at once with the vast range of his knowledge.
He aimed at nothing less than the completion of a general

1 Censorinus (De die natali, c. 14) speaks of his ‘ naturalem stomachi infirmita-
tem crebrasque morbidi corporis offensiones’ as of long duration.
2 XIIZ. p. 124.
5 περὶ βίων apud Diog. V. p. 300 B, ‘He had a lisping utterance, thin legs,
little eyes, but wore a handsome dress, and rings, and shaved carefully.’
Vou. IL. τ

274. ARISTOTLE.

encyclopedia of philosophy.’ He had divided the collective ac-
quirements of his age into their several branches, and had formed
his own opinion on every one of them. In all this mass of
learning his originality is as remarkable as his powers of re-
search. He was, in fact, the author of the first scientific
cultivation of each science, and he digested all the materials
that he found so as to reproduce them in a manner peculiar to
himself. There was hardly any quality distinguishing a philo-
‘ sopher as such, which he did not possess in an eminent degree.
We cannot indeed compare him with Bacon and the experi-
mental philosophers of modern Europe; and any such com-
parison would be quite unfair. But he was undoubtedly a
great observer, and in this respect he stands in favourable con-
trast to all who preceded him, not excepting Plato. Above all,
we must be struck with the great sobriety of his speculations, a
sobriety which is found in none of the elder schools, and is set
at nought by the poetical genius of the great founder of the
Academy. This indeed is so marked a feature in Aristotle,
that some have reckoned it among his defects, and have at-
tributed to it the dryness of his style, and the jejuneness of his
expositions.

The interest which, from an early period, attached itself
to the works of Aristotle, led to the adoption of a very strange
story about their preservation. They are said to have been
buried under ground, and not brought to light for some 200
years after the writer’s death. This story rests mainly on a
passage in Strabo,? which Plutarch partly confirms,’ though
perhaps only on the authority of Strabo himself. This geo-
grapher tells us that Aristotle’s works were sold by the de-
scendants of Neleus of Scepsis, who had got them from Theo-

1 Tt must be remarked that, though Aristotle has attempted the thing, the
barbarous name encyclopedia is not due to him. The ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, or orbis
doctrine (Quintil. Jnst. Or. I. το, § 101), corresponding generally to the seven
liberal arts of the middle ages, was first described in these terms by the later Greek
writers. Aristotle uses ἐγκύκλιος in the sense of ‘trivial, vulgar, common-place,
routine, ordinary’ (see Pol. I. 7, §2, Meteor. I. 1). The idea that Aristotle wrote
a treatise ‘on the elements of general knowledge’ (περὶ τῆς ἐγκυκλίου παιδείας)
seems to be a mere inference of Diogenes and the commentators from such passages
as Eth. Nic. 1. 5.§ 6: ἱκανῶς γὰρ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐγκυκλίοις εἴρηται περὶ αὐτῶν, where
the reference is to the λόγοι ἐξωτερικοί.

_ % XIII. p. 124. 3 Vita Sulle, c. 26.

GENERAL VIEW OF HIS WRITINGS. 275

phrastus, to one Apellicon of Teos, a book collector, after they
had been lying for many years in a cellar under ground ; that
immediately after the death of Apellicon, Sulla, having taken
Athens, got possession of Apellicon’s library, and sent it to
Rome, where Aristotle’s books fell into the hands of Tyrannio
the grammarian, who undertook an edition of them. Plutarch,
who repeats the principal part of this story, adds that Andro-
nicus the Rhodian published tables of the contents of Aris-
totle’s works (πίνακες) from the edition of Tyrannio. This is
the whole authority for the story, which is completely over-
thrown both by direct testimony, and by valid inferences. In the
first place, we have the statement of Athenzeus, a learned and
diligent collector, who, as an Egyptian Greek, was well ac-
quainted with Alexandrian bibliography, and who says’ that
Ptolemy Philadelphus bought the whole of the works of Aris-
totle from Neleus, who had preserved them, and carried them
away to his beautiful Alexandria. This statement is con-
firmed by the fact that Aristotle was included in the canon of
classical writers. Then, again, the Scholia on Aristotle, which
were compiled out of a variety of works of the Alexandrian
school, often refer to the works of Aristotle, coupled with the
name of an Alexandrian writer; and this amounts almost to a
direct proof that Aristotle’s works were known at Alexandria.
Then, again, the encyclopedic form of Aristotle’s writings
shows that they would be published altogether, if published at
all. Then, again, the polemics of Xenocrates, who defended
Plato’s doctrine of ideas against Aristotle, and of Chrysippus,
who attacked many of Aristotle’s doctrines, show that Aristotle’s
works must have been extant and available. Lastly, Cicero -
makes such frequent mention of Aristotle, and so directly
refers to the degeneracy of the later Peripatetics,? that he
could not have failed to allude to the recent appearance of

1 Athen. I. p. 3 Ὁ. After mentioning a number of book collectors, including
Aristotle, he adds: καὶ τὸν τὰ τούτων διατηρήσαντα βιβλία Νηλέα" rap’ ov πάντα
πριάμενος ὁ ἡμεδαπὸς βασιλεὺς ἸΠτολεμαῖος, Φιλάδελῴφος δὲ ἐπίκλην, μετὰ τῶν
᾿Αθήνηθεν καὶ τῶν ἀπὸ Ῥόδου εἰς τὴν καλὴν ᾿Αλεξάνδρειαν μετήγαγε.

2 De Finibus, V. 5, 12, 13: ‘teneamus Aristotelem et ejus filium Nioomachum.
Theophrastum tamen adhibeamus ad pleraque. Simus igitur contenti his; nam-
que horum posteri, meliores illi quidem quam reliquarum philosophi disciplinarum,
sed ita degenerant, ut ipsi ex se nati esse videantur.’

T 2

276 ARISTOTLE.

Aristotle’s works, if the want of this source of information had
been the true explanation of the fact, that the successors of
Theophrastus exhibited no family likeness to the founder of
the school. Still there must have been some grounds for
the story which finds a place in the pages of such an accurate
writer as Strabo; and we may conclude with safety, that
Apellicon of Teos really became possessed of an autograph of
Aristotle’s works, and that the later Peripatetics knew but little
of the works of their master, not because they were in a cellar
at Scepsis, but because they were more common at Alexandria
than at Athens, and because they were considered too abstruse
and too voluminous for general use.

In speaking of the arrangement of Aristotle’s works as they
have come down to us, we are first led to the well known distine-
tion of the esoteric and exoteric writings, by which we generally
understand the more scientific and recondite, as opposed to the
more popular and superficial treatises. It was in reference to
this division of Aristotle’s works that Lucian, in his auction of
lives, puts the philosopher up for sale as ‘a double man,’?
and Cicero often refers? to the exoteric works of Aristotle.
There is no use of the word esoferic in the writings of Aris-
totle himself, and when he employs the word ewoteric, he
does not refer to a special class of his writings, but to a dis-
cussion which is extrinsic and foreign to the subject before him,
so that the phrase, ‘this has been treated of in the exoteric
discourses,’ merely means ‘ this has been discussed elsewhere.’*
It is true that in the Eudemian Ethics, which were drawn up
by his pupil Eudemus, the epithet exoteric is opposed to the
definition, ‘ according to philosophy,’ 7.e. ‘ scientific.’* And there
can be little doubt that, after the time of Andronicus of Rhodes,

1 Vitarum Auctio, c. 26: Emtor. ποῖος δέ τις ἐστί; Merce. μέτριος, ἐπιεικής,
ἁρμόδιος τῷ βίῳ, τὸ δὲ μέγιστον διπλοῦς. Emtor. πῶς λέγεις ; Mere. ἄλλος μὲν ὁ
ἔκτοσθεν φαινόμενος, ἄλλος δὲ ὁ ἔντοσθεν εἶναι δοκεῖ" ὥστε ἣν πρίῃ αὐτὸν μέμνησο τὸν
μὲν ἐσωτερικόν, τὸν δὲ ἐξωτερικὸν καλεῖν.

2 De Finibus, V, 5, 8 12. ad Att. IV. τό, 8 2. e¢ alibi.

8 Eth. Nic. I. 13, § 9. Met. M. p. 1076 a 28: τεθρύλληται γὰρ τὰ πολλὰ καὶ
ὑπὸ τῶν ἐξωτερικῶν λόγων,

4 Eth. Eudem. I. 8, ὃ 4: ἐπέσκεπται δὲ πολλοῖς περὶ αὐτῶν τρόποις καὶ ἐν τοῖς
ἐξωτερικοῖς λόγοις καὶ ἐν τοῖς κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν.

GENERAL VIEW OF HIS WRITINGS. 277.

the works of Aristotle were technically distinguished into the
acroamatic, or autoprosopic writings, which were systematic
treatises, addressed to duly prepared hearers, and delivered in
the writer’s own person, and the ewxoteric, or dialogical, which
were occasional and desultory essays, in the form of dialogues.
This division does not apply to the works as we now have
them, for they are all in the writer’s proper person, and all
more or less scientific and methodical. We have only one
original specimen of the Aristotelian dialogue, in a quotation
of about thirty lines, preserved by Plutarch.’ Cicero has given
us translations of two other fragments.? We can see that in
these light popular essays Aristotle adopted a style more like
that of the Scolium on Virtue than that of the Nicomachean
treatise on the same subject, and justified the expression of
Cicero, who speaks of his ‘ pouring forth a golden stream of
language.’* In seeking a proper arrangement of the acroamatic
works which have come down to us entire, we may either
adopt the classification of Ammonius or Simplicius, or make
one for ourselves. These commentators, who agree in the
main, the latter having been a pupil of the former, adopt a
primary division of Aristotle’s works into ‘the particular’
(τὰ μερικά), ‘the general’ (ra καθόλου), and ‘the mixed’ (ra
μέσα or τὰ μεταξύ) ; the first being confined to the Epistles, the
third to the Natural History, and the second including most of
the extant writings. In this second class, the hypomnematic
works, or draughts and notes of books, which Cicero calls com-
mentari,’ are distinguished from the syntagmatic, or com-
plete and formal treatises; and these latter, again, are dis-
criminated as evoteric or dialogues, and acroamatic, autoprosopic,
or treatises delivered proprid persond ; then these latter, again,
are theoretical, practical, and organical, i.e. referring to language
as an instrument of thought. The theoretical are, physiological,
mathematical, and theological. The practical include the trea-
tises on ethics, politics, and econamics. The organical com.

1 Consolatio ad Apollon. p. 115 B; cf. vita Dionis, c. 22.
2 De Natwrd Deorum, II. 37. De Officiis, II. τό.

® Acad. Prior. ΤΊ. 38: ‘ veniet flumen orationis aureum fundens Aristoteles,'
* Cic. De Fin. V. 5.

278 ARISTOTLE.

prise the logical, rhetorical, and critical treatises.' It seems
to us that the order most convenient, in a general review of this
great and diversified contribution to Greek literature, will be
one analogous to that which we have adopted in discussing the
works of Plato. We shall first consider Aristotle’s treatises on
the history of philosophy, and the books in which he directly
exhibits his own views of metaphysics and psychology. This
includes what he calls theologia, and ‘ the first philosophy.’ We
then pass on to the logic, which he substituted for the dialectics
of the Socratic School, and the rhetorical and critical discussions,
which he considered as correlative to it. In the next place, as
in Plato’s system, we shall consider his ethical and political
writings. Then will follow his speculations in natural history
and general physics; and the miscellaneous works may be
considered in the light of an appendix.

§ 3. The title of Metaphysics (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά) was con-
ferred, long after Aristotle’s time, on a collection of treatises
more or less connected, in which the philosopher had given a
sketch of the views of his predecessors, and expounded his own,
on some of the primary subjects of general speculation. The
, name denoted merely the place ‘after the physical treatises,’

1 The following is the arrangement of Simplicius (Stahr, Aristotelia, II. p. 260) :—
I, τὰ μερικά, ἯΙ, τὰ μέσα.
(As the treatise on Monarchy,) (As the Natural History.)
IIL. τὰ epee

I. ὑπομνηματικά. ἃ. συνταγματικά.
ὦ. μονοειδῆ. ὃ. ποικίλα. ὦ. αὐτοπρόσωπα. ὃ. διαλογικά.
| |
a, θεωρητικά. B. πρακτικά. Ύ. ὀργανικά.
ά. θεολογικά. ά, ἠθικά. ἁ. περὶ τῆς ἀποδεικτικῆς
β΄. φυσιολογικά. β΄. οἰκονομικά. μεθόδου. (Analyt.
γ΄. μαθηματικά. γ΄. πολιτικά. Post.)

β΄. περὶ τῶν πρὸ τῆς ἀπο-
δεικτικῆς μεθόδου.
(Analyt. pr. In-
terpr. Categorie.)

γ΄. περὶ τῶν τὴν ἀπό-
δειξιν ὑποδυομένων.
(Topica, Sophist.
Elench. Rhet.)

METAPHYSICS. 279

assigned to this book in certain arrangements of the philosopher’s
works,’ but has become a general designation for formal treatises
on the subject of mental philosophy, and for that branch of
study itself, If Aristotle had given a name to all these treatises
he would perhaps have included them under the general head
of ‘wisdom,’ (σοφία), by which he meant ‘the theory of the
first elements and causes of things, including the good and the
motives of action ;’* and this would be our definition of the
modern term Metaphysics, namely, the ‘ investigation of the
causes and principles of things, as far as reason can penetrate
and arrange them.’* Considered as the first and highest of all
branches of speculation, Aristotle would term this ‘the first or
mother science,’ (ἡ πρώτη σοφία, φιλοσοφία, ἐπιστήμη), and with
reference to its supremacy he would identify it with theology,
(ἡ θεολογική)," though perhaps, in the order of study, he would
place it, like his commentators, after the contemplation of visible
nature.” That there is no inconsistency in thus viewing the
question from two sides, he has fully explained in a remarkable
passage. He says:® ‘ If there is no existence distinct from the
concrete realities of nature, physics must be the first science.
But if there is an immutable existence, it must take precedence
of the former, and its science must be the first, and because it
is the first it must also be the universal science. And it must
pertain to this philosophy to contemplate existence as such,
both in its proper definition and in its essential attributes.’
Accordingly, what we call the Metaphysics of Aristotle includes
what Plato meant by his Dialectic and the theory of ideas to
which it led. Aristotle, however, used Dialectic in a much
narrower sense than Plato. In one passage, he says that ‘ dia-
lectic is merely tentative, where philosophy is cognizant, and

1 Especially in that of Andronicus the Rhodian. See Michelet, Zxzamen Cri-
tique de 0 Quvrage d’ Aristote intitulé Metaphysique. Paris, 1836, p. 20.

2 Met. I. 2, p. 982, bg; δεῖ yap ταύτην (σοφίαν) τῶν πρώτων ἀρχῶν καὶ αἰτιῶν
εἶναι θεωρητικήν" καὶ yap τἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα ὃν τῶν αἰτίων ἐστίν.

3. Butler's Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, I. p. 74.

4 Met. XI. 5, p. 1061, b 5.

5 He gives the three speculative sciences in this order: Mathematics, Physics,
Theology (Met. VI. τ, p. 1026, a 19): ὥστε τρεῖς ἂν εἶεν φιλοσοφίαι θεωρητικαΐ,
μαθηματική, φυσική, θεολογική.

δ. Met. V. 1, p. 1026 a 29.

280 ARISTOTLE.

sophistic merely assumes an appearance while it abandons the
reality.’ In another he defines the dialecticians as merely
‘those who syllogistically develope the contradictions implied in
popular notions,” and even makes dialectic one of the four
methods of conversational discussion, (τὸ διαλέγεσθαι). The
metaphysical speculationsof Aristotle reduce themselves in a great
measure to a refined system of scientific terminology. Indeed, one
of the fourteen books in our collection is confined to definitions,
and may be even considered as a special tract on the subject.*
In discussing the theories of others, he tests them by their
views respecting the four principles of things, namely the formal,
the material, the efficient, and the final. The four causes are
thus described :* ‘One of these causes we call the substance,
(οὐσία), and the what-it-was-to-be (τὸ ri ἦν εἶναι), for the where-
fore (τὸ διὰ ri) is the last point in the definition, though it is
really the cause and the first principle, because it is necessarily
antecedent ;" the second cause we call the material (ὑλη), and
the subject (ὑποκείμενον) ; the third, we call that whence is the
beginning of the movement; the fourth, the opposite of this,
namely, the motive (τὸ ov ἕνεκα) and the good,—for this is the
end of all generation and change.’ We thus see that the formal
or ideal cause is the ‘ definition real,’ which forms the basis of
Plato’s theory of ideas. And the phrase ‘ the what-it-was-to-be,’
which Aristotle invented to describe the abstract or general
term, which was antecedent to any particular or concrete exis-

1 Me. IV. 2, p. 1004, Ὁ 25: ἐστὶ δὲ ἡ διαλεκτικὴ πειραστικὴ περὶ ὧν | φιλοσοφία
γνωριστική, 4 δὲ σοφιστικὴ φαινομένη, οὖσα δ᾽ οὔ.

2 Sophist, Elench. 2. :

3 Aristotle seems to refer to Met. IV. [V.] under the title of τὰ περὶ τοῦ ποσαχῶς
λέγεται, ef. Met. V. [VI.] 4, 1028, a4; VI. [VII.] 1, 1028, a το; ΙΧ. {X.] 1,
1052, a 15.

4 Met. I. 3, p. 983,226. Mr. R. L. Ellis observes in a note to Bacon, De Aug-
mnentis Scientiarum, lib. III. cap. IV. p. 550: ‘ These four kinds of causes may be
divided into twe classes, extrinsic and intrinsic, the efficient and final belonging to
the first class, the material and formal to the second. It is obvious that these dis-
tinctions involve the postulate of what has been called the theory of physical influ-
ence, that is, that one substance really acts on another, and must at least be modi-
fied, if we adopt any such theory on this subject as that of Leibnitz or of Herbart.’

5]. 28: ἀνάγεται yap τὸ διὰ τί els τὸν λόγον ἔσχατον, αἴτιον δὲ καὶ ἀρχὴ τὸ διὰ τί ~
πρῶτον. Here it is obvious that ἔσχατον is a secondary predicate and must be con-
strued with ἀνάγεται, and that πρῶτον is to be similarly taken with τὸ διὰ τί, ‘ the
wherefore, as being the first, is the cause and the first principle.’

METAPHYSICS. 281

tence, merely indicates the πρώτη οὐσία or abstraction which
belongs to all things capable of definition... By the use of the
past tense in this phrase, Aristotle indicates that the formal
cause has only an inferential existence,’ whereas by the phrase
‘the what-it-is’ (τὸ ri ἐστι), he implies not only the formal
cause or abstract idea, but all the particulars of the definition,
all, in fact, that is included in the category of entity or quiddity®
lt is also a special part of Aristotle’s business in these specula-
tions, to establish the distinction between the virtual or potential
and the actual state of things. The eighth book of the Meta-
physics is mainly occupied with this discussion. <A thing exists
potentially or virtually (δυνάμει), when it may be made to exist
actually (ἐνεργείᾳ). Thus the statue is virtually in the wood
before it is actually a representation of Hermes or any other
god.* From this opposition of the virtual to the actual, com-
bined with the view which Aristotle takes of the formal cause,
we get his celebrated term Entelechy (ἐντελέχεια) or complete-
ness, which is, to a certain extent, synonymous with substance
(οὐσία), distinguished from actuality (ἐνέργεια), and opposed to
matter (vn). The formal cause is an entelechy, the definition
of that which exists potentially is an entelechy, and the soul is
the primary entelechy of a natural body virtually alive.’

The proper arrangement and mutual relations of the books
called the Metaphysics of Aristotle have formed the subject of
much discussion among scholars. The following conclusions,
adopted by the latest editor, seem, on the whole, to be quite

1 Me. VI. [VII.] 4, p. 1030a6: τὸ τί ἣν εἶναι ἐστιν ὅσων ὁ λόγος ἐστὶν ὁρισμός.
1030 Ὁ 4: ἐκεῖνο δὲ φανερὸν ὅτι ὁ πρώτως καὶ ἁπλῶς ὁρισμὸς καὶ τό τί ἣν
εἶναι τῶν οὐσιῶν ἐστίν.

2 See New Cratylus, §§ 192, 343, 344-

3 Met. VI. [VII.] to, p. 1035 a 2: οὐσία ἥ re ὕλη, Kal τὸ εἶδος, καὶ τὸ ἐκ τούτων.

4 Met. VIII. [IX.]6, p. 1048 a 30. See New Cratylus, ὃ 341.

5 See the passages quoted in the Vew Cratylus, §§ 337—344. Perhaps the word
‘completeness’ is the only single term which can be accepted as an equivalent for
ἐντελέχεια. If we were not restricted to*a single term, we might call it ‘an orga-
nizing force.’ Mr. Maurice says (Ancient Philosophy, p. 191): “ εἶδος expresses the
substance ef each thing viewed in repose—its form or constitution ; ἐνέργεια, its
substance considered as active and generative ; ἐντελέχεια seems to be the synthesis
or harmony of these two ideas. The effectio of Cicero therefore represents the most
important side of it, but not the whole.’ We fear that this explanation will not be
very intelligible to an ordinary reader.

282 ARISTOTLE.

satisfactory.’ The fourteen books of the Metaphysics are gene-
rally distinguished by the first thirteen letters of the Greek
alphabet ; the first and second, however, being designated as “A
μεῖζον and ἃ ἔλαττον. Now it appears that Books A, B, I, E,
Z, H, 9, exhibit a continuous and connected development of one
and the same argument. Book A treats of ‘ wisdom’ (σοφία),
and of the principles which it involves, and criticizes the systems
of the philosophers who preceded Aristotle. Book B discusses
seventeen problems in ontology. Book I treats of the unity
of science. Book E investigates substance or entity. Books
Z, H, and 9, are occupied with concrete reality, the substantial
form, the universal actuality and virtuality. The subject of
Books B, I’, E, is briefly sketched in Book K, chapters 1—8.
The same discussion is also the subject of Books I, M, and N,
which treat of unity, ideas, and numbers. Book A, which
treats of God or ‘the good,’ does not belong to the general
question of the primary philosophy, but contains a special trea-
tise. Book A is a genuine tract of Aristotle, but does not
belong to the metaphysical works. It is inserted among these
books, and immediately before Book E, which refers to the
discussion περὶ τῶν ποσαχῶς λεγομένων, because it seemed to
be a convenient appendix or supplement to them. It is by no

1 Aristotelis Metaphysica recognovit et enarravit Hermannus Bonitz. Bonn.
1848. The views maintained by Bonitz are, in the main, the same as those put
forth by Brandis.

2 The following table will show the different arrangements of the Metaphysica, and
the different modes of citing the books; see Blakesley’s Life of Aristotle, p. 156.

Greek MSS. Du Val. Petitus. Diogenes Laértius.

A ay sine 5 περὶ ἀρχῶν d.

α ΤΕ AOC ye art περὶ ἐπιστημῶν d.

Β “LG 3 δ᾽" περὶ ἀρχῶν β'.

Ἐπ EY: 4 Ax περὶ ἐπιστημῶν β'.

Δ ὟΣ: 5 Ἐλο περὶ τῶν ποσαχῶς λεγομένων.
ν mAs δ : at περὶ εἰδῶν Kal γενῶν.

LE ig YA Sate 8 δι us περὶ ὕλης. not mentioned
rs Wns ΚΙ a. 10 περὶ ἐνεργείας. § by Diogenes.
I xX, to 2 ἡ ἐκλογὴ τῶν ἐναντίων,
ΟῚ, 13 14 περὶ ἐπιστήμης.

A ΠΡΟΣ 14 13 περὶ φιλοσοφίας d.

Μ XIII. II 1 περὶ φιλοσοφίας β΄.

Ν XIV 12 12 περὶ φιλοσοφίας γ΄.

METAPHYSICS. 283

means certain that Book a was written by Aristotle, and some
have attributed it to his scholar Pasicles the Rhodian ; at any
rate it is out of its place in this collection, and is merely a brief
essay on truth. The latter half of Book K, chapters 9—12,
is an extract carelessly made by some later writer from Aris-
totle’s Physica Auscultatio. On the whole, then, it may be
said, that we have seven continuous books, interpolated with a
tract probably written by some scholar of Aristotle, and with
a book of definitions by Aristotle himself; that these are
followed by a book (I,) connected, but not immediately, with
them, by a recapitulation (K, 1—8) of the three which foilow
the first (B, [, E,) by a careless extract from the physical
works (K, 9—12), by a special treatise on theology (A,) and
by two books, (M, N,) whose place in the first seven cannot be
accurately determined.’

Aristotle’s mental philosophy, in connexion with his physical
science, forms the subject of a special treatise concerning the
soul (περὶ ψυχῆς) in three books.? In this work, as in his Meta-
physics, the philosopher begins with a criticism on the systems
of his predecessors, which occupies the greater part of the first
book. In the second book he enters on the distinction between
soul and body, and all the principal questions connected with
the theory of sensation. And here we are at once brought
back to the phraseology on which he dwells so much in the
metaphysical books. A body, from its conformation, has a
potentiality or virtuality of existence.* Its entelechy or com-
pleteness is the soul. But even when animated by the soul,
and so, completely alive, it may have a dormant instead of an
operating activity, it may have entelechy (ἐντελέχεια) without
energy (ἐνέργεια), completeness without actuality. The soul
then is the primary or antecedent completeness of the body,
which is virtually alive ;* it is that which informs the material

1 Mr. Maurice has drawn up an able review of the Metaphysica in his Ancient
Philosophy, chapter VI. ὃ 5, pp. 178—198.

3 There is a full analysis of this book in Butler’s Lectures on Ancient Philosophy,
II. pp. 370 foll.

3 All substance consists of matter and form, and the matter is a δύναμις or
capacity, but the form is an entelechy or completeness (De Animd, II. 1, 2).

4 διὸ ψυχή ἐστιν ἐντελέχεια ἡ πρώτη σώματος φυσικοῦ δυνάμει ζωὴν ἔχοντος,

284 ARISTOTLE.

(ὕλη), and makes the actuality of life inevitable, whenever there
is the corresponding exertion. If the eye were an animal, the
faculty of vision would be its soul, its entelechy, or completeness,
and this would not be less real and complete if the eyelid were
closed over it, though in that case it would not actually see.
Without its entelechy, the eye could not be truly called by this
name, but only homonymously so.’ The soul, then, is some-
thing necessarily pertaining to the body, and ‘ each soul is in
its own proper body ; for such is the nature of things, that the
entelechy or completeness of each thing is in that particular
thing which virtually exists;’? and thus the form (εἶδος) is
always necessarily inherent in its own proper matter (ὕλη).
These definitions at once connect themselves with Aristotle’s
views respecting the gradations of organic beings, and his
subdivisions of the human soul into the vegetable, the rational,
and the partly rational.’ The intellect he regards as both
passive and active (νοῦς ποιητικός, νοῦς παθητικός). The latter
makes, the former becomes all things. Taken together, he
regards it as recipient or susceptible of general impressions or
forms. But the soul is so connected with the body that it
cannot act without the aid of the senses, or of that imagination
which retains the pictures of perception without the materials
(vAn). As we are not writing a history of Greek philosophy,
it is sufficient merely to indicate the tendency of these psycho-
logical speculations, and to show how diametrically they are
opposed to that doctrine of the soul’s independent existence
which forms a key to the philosophy of Plato.

§ 4. From a consideration of the soul and its functions, we
pass on to language as the instrument of thought. By his labours
in this field—his organic works, as they are ealled—<Aristotle has
obtained the foremost place among those who have attempted
the solution of the problem of logic; and though in the appli-

τοιοῦτο δὲ ὃ ἂν ἢ ὀργανικόν (De Animd, II. τ, ὃ 5); and again: εἰ δή τι κοινὸν ἐπὶ"
πάσης ψυχῆς δεῖ λέγειν εἴη ἂν ἐντελέχεια ἣ πρώτη σώματος φυσικοῦ ὀργανικοῦ (ibid.
§ 6.).

1 Thid. § 9: εἰ γὰρ ἣν ὁ ὀφθαλμὸς ζῷον ψυχὴ ἂν ἣν αὐτοῦ ἡ ὄψις K. τ. Ἃ.

2 Jbid. II. 2, § 14,15: καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐν σώματι ὑπάρχει καὶ ἐν σώματι τοιούτῳ
«νος ἑκάστου γὰρ ἡ ἐντελέχεια ἐν τῷ δυνάμει ὑπάρχοντι καὶ τῇ οἰκείᾳ ὅλη πέφυκεν
ἐγγίνεσθαι.

3 See below, ὃ 6. 4 De Anima, 111. 5.

LOGIC. 285

cation of his principles of reasoning to the discovery of truth
by induction, Aristotle’s system was altogether defective, and his
Organon was necessarily superseded by the Novum Organon of
Francis Bacon,’ his regulation of the laws of speech is still ad-
mitted to be sound and valid, and his analytical treatises are
the basis, at all events, of all that modern science has attempted
in the same field. We have seen* how Plato was led to his
dialectical conclusions by an examination of the opposing
systems of the Heracleiteans and Eleatics, and that his main
object was to obtain a criterion of truth and science. Among
those who admitted that there must be such a criterion, he
found that some, like Heracleitus and Protagoras, maintained
that every man was to himself the standard of truth ; others,
like Parmenides, required a scientific cultivation before any man
could come to a true judgment. Plato inclined to this class,
and Aristotle would not accept the famous maxim of Protagoras
except on ‘the condition that the sense and reason were in a
perfect and healthy condition.* Still less could Aristotle adopt
the Heracleitean hypothesis, that all things were in a state of
perpetual flux or motion, so that nothing could be considered as
in the same state for two successive moments. If this were so,
the primary axiom of reasoning—the same thing cannot be and
not be‘—would fail to establish itself, for we might connect con-
tradictory predicates with the same subject at inappreciable
intervals of time. Aristotle’s logic, then, like Plato’s dialectic,
rested upon a previous examination of the general questions of ©
ontology, hypothesis, axioms, and causation. But while Plato
considered dialectics as including metaphysics or philosophy as
well as the principles of reasoning, Aristotle, as we have seen,

1 The Novum Organon had an antagonistic reference to the Organon of Aristotle,
just as the New Atlantis entered into professed rivalry with the Critias of Plato.
On Bacon’s design in his great philosophical works, the English reader can now
consult the admirable introductions of R, L. Ellis, and J. Spedding.

2 Above, chapter XX XIX. § 7.

3 Met. X. 1, p. 1053 ἃ 35. XI. 6, p. 1062 b 12.

4 Met. III. 3, p. 1005, Ὁ. 23: ἀδύνατον ὁντινοῦν ταὐτὸν ὑπολαμβάνειν εἶναι καὶ
μὴ εἶναι, Analyt. Pr. I. 40: φάσις καὶ ἀπόφασις οὐχ ὑπάρχουσιν ai ἀντικείμεναι
ἅμα τῷ αὐτῷ... .. κατὰ παντὸς ἑνὸς ἢ φάσις ἢ ἀπόφασις ἀληθής. Analyt. Post,
1. 25: διὰ γὰρ τὴν κατάφασιν ἡ ἀπόφασις γνώριμος καὶ προτέρα ἡ κατάφασις ὥσπερ
καὶ τὸ εἶναι τοῦ μὴ εἶναι.

286 ARISTOTLE.

discussed the primary philosophy in a separate work, and
examined the laws of reasoning by themselves.

The logical works of Aristotle consist of the following
treatises :—The Categories, the beok on Interpretation, the
former and latter Analytics, the Topics, and the Sophistical
Proofs. These five treatises, together with Porphyry’s intro-
duction to the first of them, are generally called the Organon.
The Categories are a list of the ten most general forms under
which separate terms may serve as the subject or predicate of a
proposition.’ This list seems to be founded chiefly on gram-
matical considerations ; and the categories, according to the
instances which Aristotle has given of them, are merely a
syntactical arrangement of certain parts of speech. The first,
or the category of substance or guiddity, includes nouns sub-
stantive; the next three, quantity, quality, and relation, are
different sorts of adjectives; the 5th and 6th are adverbs of
place and time; and the last four are verbs considered as in-
transitive (7th), perfect passive or the effect of action (8th),
active (gth), and passive (10th). Adrastus wished to regard the
Categories as an introduction to the Topics (τὰ πρὸ τῶν τοπικῶν),
and the latter does contain an enumeration of the six categore-
mata or predicables which are supplementary to the ten
categories or predicaments ; but Porphyry rejected this appella-
tion, and it seems better to consider the Categories as the
treatise on separate terms, which precedes the Interpreta-
tion or treatise on propositions, and forms a preface to the
whole body of logical books. This essay on Interpretation is
a discussion of nouns and verbs considered as the necessary
parts of an enunciation or sentence. We have seen that this

1 Ritter says that ‘the categories according to Aristotle are the most general
forms of that which is denoted by the simple word ;’ Hegel defines them as ‘simple
essences, universal designations’ (Bestimmungen); Biese as brief definite data
(Angaben), which are to be considered in the investigation of the question ; Quin-
tilian (II. 6. § 23) says: ‘ Aristoteles elementa decem constituit circa que versari
videatur omnis questio.’ According to Waitz, the last editor of the Organon,
κατηγορία in Aristotle means (1) quodeunque predicatur, (2) genera eorwm que
predicantur, (3) ipsa predicandi ratio, (4) propositio simplex.. Karnyopia and
κατηγόρημα are sometimes used as synonyms; Simplicius, fol. 36, distinguishes
them as λέξις and πρᾶγμα. See also Plotinus, De categ. Ennead. 1V. 1.

2 New Cratylus, § 125. Trendelenburg, Geschichte der Categorienlehre, Berlin,
1846, pp. 384 foll.

LOGIC. 287

analysis of the sentence was adopted by Plato, and that ὄνομα,
the ‘name’ or ‘noun, was the original designation of the
subject, and ῥῆμα, the ‘ assertion’ or ‘ verb,’ was the original
designation of the predicate. From the complete sentence he
passes on, in ‘the former Analytics’ (Analytica Priora), to a
discussion of the syllogism, which implies the combiation, by
means of a middle term, of the three complete sentences, which
involve the two premisses and their conclusion.’ Here he falls
back on the first principles of his metaphysical reasoning ; for
‘ the principle involved in all syllogism is the dictum de omni
et nullo, which is identical with the axiom or the principle of
contradiction”? The former Analytics, then, were well de-
scribed in their old title, ‘On the Syllogism’ (περὶ συλλογισμοῦ).
The latter Analytics are entitled ‘On Demonstration’ (περὶ
ἀποδείξεως) ; and the whole work may be described, in the
words of an English commentator, as falling into three divisions :
(A) the generic branch, which treats of reasoning in general,
whether the result is Opinion or Science; (B) the specific
branch, which treats of reasoning, the result of which is Science,
Inductive or Deductive; (C) the specific branch, which treats
of Dialectical reasoning, the result of which is Opinion. Or,
as Induction is not sufficiently confined to scientific reasoning
by Aristotle, whose topics are lax, and whose observation of
phenomena was scanty and careless, we may say that the
Organon may be ‘ divided into four parts—General Logic, the
Logie of Deduction, the Logic of Induction, and the Logic of

1 Aristotle’s account of induction in the Prior Analytics was criticized by Dr.
Whewell in 1850 (7 γαη8. of the Cambr. Phil. Soc. vol. TX. part 1), and the text
and reasoning of the philosopher were defended by Mr. H. A. J. Munro, of Trinity
College, in a very able paper, which has not, we believe, been published. Mr.
Munro says (p. 9): ‘The object of Aristotle in his Prior Analytics is to give a
technical exposition of the syllogism and its various moods and figures. In the
concluding chapters of the work he maintains, in order to give his treatise a formal
completeness, that any kind of proof may be put into the syllogistic form,’ and thus
he ‘does not say that induction is a syllogism, but that any proof, and therefore
induction, may be put into a syllogistic form.’

2 The Posterior Analytics of Aristotle, by Edward Poste, Oxford, 1850, p. 8.
Mr. Poste adds: ‘ When Dugald Stewart observes that the whole of the science of
syllogism is comprised or implied in the terms of one single axiom, his assertion is
quite correct, the doctrine of syllogism merely determining, on the authority of the
axiom itself, under what conditions the axiom is applicable.’

288 ARISTOTLE.

Opinion ; the third not sufficiently articulated and disengaged
from the fourth, and hence the necessity of a Novum Organon?
The Topics, which Cicero had studied so carefully that he was
able to make an epitome of the book from memory in the course
of a voyage from Velia to Rhegium,’ is an examination of the
different dialectical maxims or secondary axioms, from which we
derive the middle terms of our syllogisms, and so frame the
demonstrative argument ; and the treatise on Sophistical Proofs
(περὶ σοφιστικῶν ἐλέγχων)" is an analysis of the different forms
of fallacy, with a view to their detection and confutation.

The Organon, as it has come down to us, does not include
all or nearly all the books which Aristotle wrote on logic. The
old commentators mention forty books attributed to the philo-
sopher, many of which they rejected as not genuine.‘ Diogenes
Laértius enumerates about twenty logical treatises besides those
that we have; he says that there were eight, or, as one manu-
script has, ten books of the former Analytics.” The Methodica,
in eight books, which are quoted in the Rhetoric,’ may have
been this very collection, and perhaps the same work is referred
to in the Nicomachean Ethics.

§ 5. The treatise on Rhetoric which has come down to us
is apparently one of the latest of Aristotle’s extant writings.
His earlier work on the subject—the Συναγωγὴ Teyvor—was
rather a history of Rhetorical Literature, than a philosophical
essay like that which we have, and was written probably during
his first residence at Athens. Our present book refers to the
Politics, which were a continuation of the Ethics, were written
after the Poetics, and mention the death of Philip ;’ and it has

1 Poste, Posterior Analytics, pp. 8, 32, 36.

2 Cie. Topica, I. 5: ‘itaque hee, quam mecum libros non haba memoria&
repetita, in ips& navigatione conscripsi.. Mr. Maurice remarks (Ancient Philo-
sophy, p. 174): ‘To understand Aristotle rightly, the Zopics should be read together
with the three books on rhetoric...... It (the Rhetorica) is closely connected
with this work on probable arguments. The Topics are to it what the six books of
Euclid are to a treatise on practical mechanics,’

8 ‘This work has a natural connexion with the Topics, as Aristotle himself re-
marks in the beginning of the last chapter of the second book.” —Blakesley, Life of
Aristotle, p. 144.

4 Blakesley, u.s. 38/23; 6 I, 2, § to.

7 That the Rhetoric was written after the Poetics appears from the latter, c. 19:
ἐν τοῖς περὶ ῥητορικῆς κείσθω. That the Politics followed the Poetics appears from

RHETORIC. 289

therefore been inferred by.a modern critic that the Rhetoric
must have been written about 330 B.c.' But although the
existing treatise belongs to the last years of Aristotle’s literary
activity, it is quite clear that its subject was one of the earliest
which engaged his attention both as a teacher and as a writer.
It is also certain that he regarded it as a necessary supplement
to his dialectical treatises. The book begins by defining
rhetoric as the correlative (ἀντίστροφος) of dialectic ;? and the
author is at great pains to show how the rhetorical enthymeme
(ἐνθύμημα) is related to the logical syllogism, the two modes
of reasoning, though identical in their form, being different
in their matter, because the topics or commonplaces of rhetoric
do not admit of strictly scientific demonstration.’ Aristotle,
however, justly claims to have raised rhetoric to the rank of an
applied science, or at least of an art resting on scientific
principles. ‘Those,’ he says,‘ ‘who have hitherto composed
treatises on rhetoric (τὰς τέχνας τῶν λόγων) have introduced
but little art into their systems. For the discussion of proofs
(πίστεις) is the only part of their treatises that can be regarded
as belonging to the art (ἔντεχνον) ; all the rest consists in
merely accessory matter (προσθῆκαι). Besides, they say
nothing about enthymemes, which are the substance of proofs,
and busy themselves generally with extraneous discussions.’ As
might be expected from a work on which Aristotle has bestowed
the results of his mature knowledge and literary experience,
and the subject of which had always occupied his attention,
the Rhetoric is one of the most perfect of his compositions.
Diogenes quotes only two books, and it is possible that the
first two were originally a separate treatise, to which the third

Pol. VIII. 7. B, 41. b, 39. The mention of the death of Philip in the Politics s
in 8 (V.), το. § 16.

1 L. Spengel, Munich Transactions, VI, for 1852, p. 496.

5 Rhet. I, τ: ἡ ῥητορική ἐστιν ἀντίστροφος τῇ διαλεκτικῇ" ἀμφότεραι γὰρ περὶ
τοιούτων τινῶν εἰσιν, ἃ κοινὰ τρόπον τινὰ ἁπάντων ἐστι γνωρίζειν καὶ οὐδεμιᾶς ἐπι-
στήμης ἀφωρισμένης. He defines rhetoric (I. 2, ὃ 1) as: δύναμις περὶ ἕκαστον τοῦ
θεωρῆσαι τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον πιθανόν, and says, 1.1, 814: οὐ τὸ πεῖσαι ἔργον αὐτῆς ἀλλὰ
τὸ ἰδεῖν τὰ ὑπάρχοντα πιθανὰ περὶ ἕκαστον.

3 T.2,§8. The relation of the enthymeme to the syllogism is well discussed in a
paper on rhetoric in Blackwood’s Magazine for December, 1827,

δ», $3:

Vou. II. U

250 ARISTOTLE.

was subsequently added as an appendix. This view is borne
out by the divisions of the work.' The first two books treat
of the doctrine of proofs (πίστεις), which Aristotle regarded as
the most scientific part of his subject; and the third discusses
the rules of diction (λέξις) and arrangement (τάξις). So that
the first two teach what the rhetorician ought to say; the third
how he ought to say it; and the three together comprise the
three departments “aig be to the Roman teachers of rhetoric
as inventio, elocutio, and dispositio.2 According to Aristotle,
rhetoric is an offshoot of dialectics and politics:* of the
former, because the enthymeme or oratorical syllogism, which
is intended only to persuade, rests upon its dialectical parent,
which is caleulated to convince ;* of the latter, because a know-
ledge of ethical philosophy is essential to the artificial prepara-
tion of an argument. As the enthymeme is an application of
the syllogism, so the example (παράδειγμα) is the oratorical
form of logical induction.’ The inquiry about dispositions and

1 The following is the general analysis of the Rhetoric of Aristotle.

Books I. and II. (a) ἐκ τίνων ai πίστεις ἔσονται.
I. 1, 2. Definitions.
3. Three provinces of rhetoric—deliberative, forensic, epideictic.
4-8. The deliberative.
9. The epideictic.
10-14. The forensic.
15. (a) Formal and inartificial proofs (ἄτεχνοι mlorecs)—laws, witnesses,
agreements, torture, oaths.

II. τ. (8) Artificial proofs (ἔντεχνοι πίστεις) : dependent (I) on the character
of the speaker and the state of the hearer, (II) on the speech
itself.

1-17. (I) Theory of the affections.
18-26. (II) The common proofs (xowal-ricre:s).
Book IIT. (6) περὶ τὴν λέξιν.
III. 1-12. General remarks on oratorical style.
(Ὁ πῶς χρὴ τάξαι τὰ μέρη τοῦ λόγου.
13-19. On the parts of the oration. "

2 Spengel, u.s. p. 477.

3 T. 2, 8.7: ὥστε συμβαίνει τὴν ῥητορικὴν οἷον παραφυές τι τῆς διαλεκτικῆς εἶναι
καὶ τῆς περὶ τὰ ἤθη πραγματείας, ἣν δίκαιόν ἐστι προσαγορεύειν πολιτικήν" διὸ καὶ
ὑποδύεται ὑπὸ τὸ σχῆμα τὸ τῆς πολιτικῆς ἡ ῥητορική.

4 ae tells us that the γνώμη, or general sentiment, is μέρος ἐνθυμήματος
(II. 20, § 1); for the causal sentence with γάρ, added to the γνώμη, makes an
enthymeme or rhetorical argument (II. 21, ὃ 2).

5 T. 2,88: καλῷ δ᾽ ἐνθύμημα μὲν Siedutale συλλογισμόν' παράδειγμα δὲ ican

RHETORIC. 291

characters, which occupies the first seventeen chapters of the
second book, is a valuable addition to Aristotle’s moral philo-
sophy ; and it is a just tribute to the accurate observation of
the Greek philosopher and the English dramatist, when attempts
are made to exemplify the ee of Aristotle by examples
taken from Shakspere.’

It is interesting to caine the relations between the rhe-
torical system of Aristotle and those of Plato and Isocrates.
Throughout the rhetoric there is a tacit reference both to the
Gorgias and the Phedrus.’ The latter especially, which con-
tains Plato’s views of scientific rhetoric, anticipates Aristotle’s
views in so many respects, that it would be surprising that he
does not directly refer to it, if this circumstance were not ex-
plicable, according to the ancient rules of citation, by the fact -
that Aristotle so completely agreed with its general scope.
When Plato says* that, ‘as the power of speaking is just a sort
of soul-leading (ψυχαγωγία), he who would be a rhetorician
must know all the forms of the soul, he states generally what
Aristotle discusses in detail in the second book of his rhetoric.*
And throughout the latter work we see a general recognition of
the principles laid down by Plato. The great discrepancy between
the master and pupil on this subject is suggested by the oppo-
sition between the favourable opinion respecting Isocrates, which
is expressed in the Phedrus, and the well known antagonism
between Aristotle and that orator. We have noticed above the
reasons which have been advanced against the common opinion
that the Phedrus was one of the earliest, if not the very earliest,
of Plato’s dialogues, and that therefore the opinion about Iso-
crates was really a prophecy, which he never fulfilled.” Plato
and Aristotle might very well entertain different opinions

ῥητορικήν. The different kinds of examples are discussed in II. 20, and the
enthymemes are considered in IT. 21—26.

1 We believe that a little book illustrating Aristotle’s Rhetoric by extracts from
Shakspere appeared at Oxford some twenty years ago.

5. See Spengel, whi supra, pp. 458 sqq.

3 Phedrus, p.271 C: ἐπειδὴ λόγου δύναμις τυγχάνει Puxaywyla οὖσα, τὸν μέλλοντα
ῥητορικὸν ἔσεσθαι ἀνάγκη εἰδέναι, ψυχὴ ὅσα εἴδη ἔχει. Cf. 261 A: Gp οὖν οὐ τὸ μὲν
ὅλον ἡ ῥητορικὴ ἂν εἴη ψυχαγωγία τις διὰ λόγων ;

4 Rhet. 11. :-17. Cf. Spengel, u.s. p. 466.

5 Above, chapter XX XIX. § 6, pp. 221, 222 (61, 62].

U 2

292 ARISTOTLE.

respecting this orator, and their personal relations with him
might have contributed to this discrepancy. There is no reason
to doubt that Plato and Isocrates were on friendly terms; and
it is distinctly stated that this was far from being the case with
the latter and Aristotle. We have seen how Aristotle spoke of
Isocrates,' and it has been inferred that the orator glanced at
Aristotle in the passage of his Panathenaicus, where he speaks
of ‘certain vulgar Sophists of the Lyceum that professed to
know everything,” and in his fifth epistle, which is considered
genuine, there is a direct attack on the philosopher.’ It will
be remarked, however, that there are no symptoms of hostility
in the many references to Isocrates which are found in the
Rhetoric. This frequency of citation has been explained by the
fact that Aristotle was not himself a professed orator, like
Anaximenes, and did not make examples ;* so that he would
naturally take his illustrations from the best known and most
available specimens of the art.°

Diogenes Laertius gives a list of six rhetorical treatises attri-
buted to Aristotle ;° one is the collection (Συναγωγή) already
referred to, another is a book called Gryllus, another is the
Rhetoric to Theodectes, which is quoted as the Theodectea’ in the
third book of the great work, and the remaining three are
merely designated as ‘the art of rhetoric in two books, ‘the
art in one book,’ and ‘another art in two books.” Diogenes
does not mention the Rhetoric to Alexander, which is still
preserved among Aristotle’s writings, and which has been proved

1 Above, p. 265 [105]. Spengel considers that the reproach in Hth. Nic. X. το,
1181, 12, refers to the Antidosis of Isocrates, § 83.

2 Panathenaicus, § 20, p. 236 D: ἀπαντήσαντες γάρ τινές μοι τῶν ἐπιτηδείων
ἔλεγον ws ἐν τῷ Λυκείῳ συγκαθεζομένων τρεῖς ἢ τέτταρες τῶν ἀγελαίων σοφιστῶν
καὶ πάντα φασκόντων εἰδέναι καὶ τάχεως πανταχοῦ γιγνομένων. This speech was not
finished till B.c. 340, when Aristotle was at the court of Philip, so that the reference
to Aristotle and his friends must be quite general and perhaps retrospective.

3 Spengel, οὐδὲ supra, pp. 472 866. 4 Spengel, p. 474.

5 Demosthenes is quoted twice only, IT. 23, § 3; ITI. 4, § 3. Liysias is referred
to only once (III. το, ὃ 7), and Aschines, Antiphon, Andocides, Iseus, Hypereides,
and Lycurgus, are not mentioned at all. He refers to orators of inferior reputa-
tion, like Cleophon, Meerocles, Autocles, &c.

6 See I, T. Buhlii Argumentum librorum Aristotelis de Rhetoricd, prefixed to
the Oxford edition, 1833; Spengel, u. s. p. 476.

7 III. 9, $9: αἱ δ᾽ ἀρχαὶ τῶν περιόδων σχεδὸν ἐν τοῖς Θεοδεκτείοις ἐξηρίθμηνται.

RHETORIC. 293

to be the work of his contemporary Anaximenes of Lampsacus.'
It has been inferred also that the Theodectea was not written
by Aristotle, but by his friend and scholar Theodectes.? The
Gryllus, which is entirely lost, is cited by Quintilian as fur-
nishing examples of Aristotle’s subtlety.®

Aristotle’s essay on the Poetic Art (περὶ ποιητικῆς) is a mere
fragment, abounding in interpolations. Some have supposed
that it is an excerpt carelessly made from the two books on
Poets, quoted by Macrobius.? It seems, however, that in its
complete and original form it must have been quite as methodical
and scientific as the Rhetoric. And it is a remarkable fact that,
imperfect and fragmentary as the work now is, the Poetic was
accepted as a sort of critical gospel at the very time when
Aristotle’s philosophical reputation was at its lowest point. His
briefly expressed doctrine that poetry takes its rise in the
tendency to imitation which is natural to man,’ his hint that
the drama originated in the recitations of the dithyrambic
leaders,’ and the laws of unity which he prescribed, were made

1 This was first shown by Victorinus and Majoragius, and has been abundantly
proved by Spengel (Artiwm Scriptores, p. 182 sqq.), who has edited the treatise, as
‘ Anaximenis Ars Rhetorica, que vulgo fertur Aristotelis ad Alexandrum, Turici
et Vitoduri, 1844.’

2 That Theodectes wrote a τέχνη is well known. It is referred to by his con-
temporary Antiphanes, the comic poet (ap. Athen. IV. p. 134 B):

ὁ τὴν Θεοδέκτου μόνος ἀνευρηκὼς τέχνην :

and is said by Suidas to have been written in verse: ἔγραψε δὲ καὶ τέχνην ῥητορι-
κὴν ἐν μέτρῳ. Cf. Steph. Byz. s.v. Φάσηλις. But the book was attributed to
Aristotle at an early period ; Quintilian speaks doubtfully on the subject (II. 15,
§ 10). The words in the spurious letter to Alexander (prefixed to the τέχνη of
Anaximenes, p. 4, 1. 23, Spengel) are quite unintelligible: ‘aut ego stupidus,’
says Spengel, ‘ et talp&4 cecior sum, qui nullum horum sensum videam, aut inep-
tus fuit auctor, qui que nemo intelligere posset scriberet.’ On Theodectes in
general the reader may consult Marcher, De Theodectis Phaselite Vitd et Scriptis
Commentatio, Vratislavie, 1835.

3 ΤΙ, 17, § 14: ‘Aristoteles, ut solet, querendi gratié quedam subtilitatis suze
argumenta excogitavit in Gryllo.’

4 See F. Ritter’s edition of this tract, Coloniw, 1839, and our reprint of Twining’s
translation in the Theatre of the Greeks, ed. 6; and compare Spengel’s essay in the
Munich Transactions, 1837, 11. pp. 209 sqq.

5 Saturnalia, V. 18, ὃ 19, p. 460, Janus; and cf. Stahr, Aristot. ὃ. ὦ. Rémer,
Pp. 190 sqq.

6 I. §2; see Raumer, in the Berlin Transactions for 1828.

7 IV. § 12; see Theatre of the Greeks, ed. 6, pp. 13 8qq.

294 ARISTOTLE.

the texts for long disquisitions and complete works on the
subject, at the time when Bacon’s inductive philosophy had
driven Aristotle’s Organon out of the field, and stigmatized him
as the author of a false and erroneous method. In spite of its
mutilated condition,’ this relic exhibits the genuine style of
Aristotle, and justifies in a great measure even the exaggerated
importance which has been attributed to it.

§ 6. Three works on the subject of moral philosophy are in-
cluded in the extant collection of Aristotle’s writings. They
are generally distinguished as the Kthica Nicomachea, the
Ethica Eudemia, and the Magna Moralia. Their comparative
genuineness has formed the subject of a good deal of discussion.
Cicero’s supposition that the Nicomachean Ethics were not
written by Aristotle, but by his son Nicomachus,’? was probably
occasioned merely by the title, which may be explained in many
ways, and is, in itself, quite insignificant. Schleiermacher be-
lieved* that the Magna Moralia were a genuine work, and that
the Eudemian Ethics were a report of Aristotle’s lectures pub-
lished by his pupils. All these treatises are noticed by Dio-
genes, and it is clear that they are all three of great antiquity.
The most probable conclusion‘ is that the Nicomachean Ethics
contain the authentic and original system of the philosopher
himself ; that the Eudemian Ethics’ were the work of his pupil
Eudemus of Rhodes; and that the Magna Moralia were merely
a later extract from this second work.

Of all Aristotle’s writings there is no one which retains its

1 If we compare the tract as it stands with the design as stated in the first
section, we shall see that the book originally contained discussions on comic and
lyric poetry, which are now lost. ‘fo the lost remarks on comedy, Aristotle him-
self refers, in his Rhet. III. 18, § 7: εἴρηται πόσα εἴδη γελοίων ἐστιν ἐν τοῖς wept
Ποιητικῆς. 2 De Finibus, V. 5, ὃ 12.

8 Werke, III. Abth. zur Philos. vol. III. pp. 306 sqq.

4 This is Spengel’s view (Munich Transactions, vol. V. pp. 458 544.)

5 The genuineness of books V. VI. VII. of the Nicomachean- Ethics, which cor-
respond to books IV. V. VI. of the Zudemian Ethics, has been well maintained by
Bendixen in two articles on the seventh book of the former, in Schneidewin’s
Philologus for 1855, pp. 199, 544.; 263, sqq. He has called attention, inter alia, to the
perpetual reminiscences of the seventh book in the Politics of Aristotle (p. 290), and
this applies particularly to the main stumbling-block, Hih. Nic. VII. ce. 14, 15,
for there is a distinct reference to ὁ. 14, Ὁ. 1153 Ὁ 7—18 in the Politics 1V. 11,
p- 1295 ἃ 35 (see Bendixen pp. 201, sqq.).

MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 295

value and importance more entirely than the Nicomachean
Ethics, especially if we consider them in connexion with his
Politics. Indeed, this branch of philosophy has been retro-
grading rather than advancing. In point of systematic con-
nexion the Ethics may hold a place by the side of any modern
book on the subject, and the searching logic, with which it is
sifted in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, shows the exactness
and coherency of its framework. The great distinction between
Aristotle and his predecessors, in regard to the discussion of
moral philosophy, consists in the thoroughly practical view
which he takes of happiness and virtue. Altogether rejecting
the doctrine of Socrates, a doctrine partly adopted by Plato,
that virtue consisted in the knowledge of what was right, Aris-
totle believed that a general knowledge of what was good: might
perfectly well consist with doing what was wrong in particular
instances, under the influence of passion or inclination. And
herein consists the distinction, on which he lays so much stress
in his seventh book, between the man who is incontinent
(ἀκρατής), that is, habitually unable to control his inclinations,
and the man who is intemperate (ἀκόλαστος), that is, inten-
tionally devoted to self-indulgence ;' the former being much less
vicious than the latter, more likely to regret a misdoing, and
more open to correction and amendment.*

The Nicomachean Ethics are divided into ten books. It has
been supposed by a German critic that the eighth and ninth
books, which treat of friendship, formed a separate work, and
that the discussion about pleasure in the tenth book was an
addition by Aristotle’s son, Nicomachus.* And an English

1 In Eth. Nic. VII. 4, §6, he says: ‘some act from deliberate choice (προαι-
podvrat), but others do not: so that the name of intemperate (ἀκόλαστος) should
rather be given to him who, either without a passionate impulse, or with only a
moderate one (ὅστις μηδ᾽ ἐπιθυμῶν ἢ ἤρεμα), pursues excessive pleasures, and eschews
- moderate annoyances, than to him who does this under a strong inclination ; for
what would the other do, if a violent impulse were superadded, and some over-
powering feeling of uneasiness in regard to necessary wants ?

2 Eth. Nic. VII. 8, § 1: ἔστι δὲ ὁ μὲν ἀκόλαστος, ὥσπερ ἐλέχθη, οὐ μεταμελητικός,
ἐμμένει γὰρ τῇ προαιρέσει" ὁ δ᾽ ἀκρατὴς μεταμελητικὸς πᾶς διὸ οὐχ ὥσπερ ἠπορή-
σαμεν, οὕτω καὶ ἔχει" ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν ἀνίατος, ὁ δὲ ἰατός.

3 Pansch, De Ethicis Nicomacheis, Bonn, 1833. The eighth and ninth books of
the Fthics have been published separately, as: ᾿Αριστοτέλης περὶ φιλίας, by A. T.
H. Fritzsch, Gisse, 1847.

296 ARISTOTLE.

scholar’ has quite recently advanced the theory that the fifth,
sixth, and seventh books were borrowed from the Eudemian
Ethics to supply a gap which was observed in the treatise which
bears the name of its editor Nicomachus, and that the essay on
friendship, though by Aristotle himself, is an unessential ad-
junct, originally in the form of a special essay.

But these are mere conjectures, and it is not difficult to see
that the work, as we have it, is a continuous essay, in three
main subdivisions. The first part, which comprises the first
and second books, and five chapters of the third, treats of the
chief good and virtue; the second part, which includes the re-
mainder of the third book, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth, dis-
cusses the different virtues; the third part, which contains the
seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth books, investigates the out-
ward furniture of virtue, namely, continence, which belongs to
the rational part of the soul, friendship, which pertains to the
social appetite, and pleasure, which is referred to the instinct of
self-preservation. And these points being discussed, the author
returns to the subject of the first book, namely, happiness, and
with an accurate recapitulation on this subject he passes on to
the treatise on Politics.

The Nicomachean Ethics begin with an inquiry respecting
the ends of human action. The chief of these ends being ad-
mitted to be happiness, it is of course the main point to de-
termine wherein happiness consists. It cannot be limited to
pleasure, honour, or intellect, for these, though desirable on
their own account, are chiefly sought on account of the felicity
to which they contribute. Admitting the importance of external
adjuncts, as the necessary furniture of good fortune, Aristotle is
content to define happiness as ‘ an activity, operation, or function
of the soul, in accordance with perfect virtue’ (ἡ εὐδαιμονία
ἐστι ψυχῆς ἐνέργειά τις κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν τελείαν). And hence it
follows that the question respecting the ends of action resolves

1 Sir Alexander Grant, in the introduction to his edition of the Zthics, London,
1857, p. 43. See also Mr. Munro’s paper in the Jowrnal of Philology for 1855,
pp. 68 sqq.

2 The student will find a good analysis of the Nicomachean Ethics, especially
with reference to Aristotle’s treatment of ustice and friendship, in Mr. Maurice’s
Ancient Philosophy, pp. 200—208 3 Eth. Nic. I. 13, § 14.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 297

itself into an inquiry respecting the nature of virtue. As the
seat of virtue is the soul, the moral philosopher is required to
have some knowledge of mental philosophy. Aristotle indicates
that the soul is bipartite... Considered as the vital principle, it
is either rational or irrational. As far as it is merely irrational,
it is common to men and brutes, and therefore does not enter
into the question about human virtue and happiness. So far,
however, as it partakes of, or is capable of listening to reason—
that is, so far as it belongs to appetite and desire—the irra-
tional part of the soul may be regarded as constituting the seat
of a particular class of virtues. Accordingly Aristotle distin-
guishes between the intellectual virtues (ἀρεταὶ διανοητικαί), such
as wisdom, understanding, and prudence, which belong strictly
to the rational part of the soul, and the moral virtues (aperat
ἠθικαί), such as liberality and temperance, which are referred
to the commendable habits (ἕξεις érawerai) of the irrational
or merely appetitive branch of the soul. Passing on to the
definition of virtue, Aristotle gives us an elaborate discussion in
support of his view, that virtue is a mean between two extremes
of vice; that it always stands half-way between the too much
and the too little. Thus true courage is a mean between temerity
and cowardice. The two opposites, and even the virtues them-
selves, are not always recognized or indicated by names in
ordinary language, and sometimes those who are guilty of one

1 The following is the subdivision suggested in the Nicomachean Ethics I. 13;
see Pol. 4 (VII.) 15.

ΤΕ

| os

ἄλογον ἄλογον μετέχον πη λόγον λόγον ἔχον
(θρεπτικόν, (ἐπιθυμητικόν, « eed Ἔ
φυτικόν) ὀρεκτικόν) ὩΣ ἢ ἀρεταί

Pen τωι, ; ἴα.

ἠθικαὶ ἀρεταί LOTLKOV, ἐπιστημονικόν

αἀστικόν
πε ες a | le ot |
φυσικὴ ἀρετή ἡ κυρία φρόνησις | |. τέχνη
| ! δεινότης δόξα |

ἐπιστήμη, σοφία, ae
2 Thus there is a nameless virtue, which bears the same relation to magnanimity
that liberality does to magnificence, and which observes the proper mean between
the excessive and defective pursuit of honour: Zth. Nic. IV. ο. 4.

298 ARISTOTLE.

or the other extreme consider their vicious opposite to be the
man who adheres to the golden mean of virtue. Still this defi-
nition is the necessary result of a scientific analysis of every
moral virtue. This analysis Aristotle undertakes in the second
part of his work, examining the moral virtues in general in the
third and fourth books, and justice in particular in the fifth;
because, as we have seen, Plato had made this the regulative
principle of all morality, and, also, because justice is not, like
the other virtues, a mean between two opposite extremes of vice,
but rather belongs to that which is the mean between the too
much and too little of a man’s rights, whereas injustice belongs
to both extremes. in this respect.’ The sixth book is devoted
to the intellectual virtues.. He then, as he says, makes another
beginning in the seventh book, and treats here of continence
and incontinence, the general result of his investigation being
given in the words which Dante puts into the mouth of Virgil.
‘ Do you not remember,’ says the poet,’ ‘those words in which
your Ethics thoroughly discuss the three habits or dispositions
which are offensive to heaven, incontinence (ἀκρασία), malice
(κακία), and low brutality (θηριότης), and how it is that imeon-
tinence incurs the least blame of the three?’ In fact, Aristotle
regards incontinence rather as a weakness incident to the com-
posite nature of man, than as a vice springing from a depravity
of will or choice, and, therefore, makes great allowances for it.
These three important discussions on justice, the intellectual
virtues, and incontinence, which occupy the fifth, sixth, and
seventh books of the Nicomachean Ethics, re-appear, in extenso,
in the fourth, fifth, and sixth books of the Eudemian Ethics ;
and there is no doubt that they were regarded by the followers
of Aristotle as constituting one of the most characteristic and
instructive portions of his morgl philosophy. The eighth and

1 Eth. Nic. V.9: ἡ δὲ δικαιοσύνη μεσότης ob τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ταῖς πρότερον
ἀρεταῖς, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι μέσου ἐστίν" ἡ δ᾽ ἀδικία τῶν ἄκρων.
2 Inferno ΧΙ. 79:
Non ti rimembra di quelle parole
Con le quai la tua Etica pertratta
Le tre disposizion ch ’] ciel non vuole,
Incontinenza, malizia, 6 la matta
Bestialitade? 6. come incontinenza
Men Dio offende 6 men biasimo accatta ?

POLITICS. . 299

ninth books contain an interesting inquiry respecting friend-
ship, in which it is shown not only that virtue is essential to _
true friendship, but also that true friendship is essential to per-
fect happiness. In the first part of the tenth book, we have
an essay on pleasure, practically considered ; and, while it is
admitted that pleasure is a good, it is proved that it cannot be
regarded as the summum bonum. Aristotle defines pleasure as
that which perfects the operation (τελειοῖ τὴν ἐνεργείαν ἡ
ἡδονή), for, as pleasure is found by the side of every sensation,
and in like manner may be produced by every exertion of the
intellect and every speculation, that which is most perfect and
complete is also most pleasurable. From pleasure he returns
to happiness. As happiness is not a habit (ἕξις), but an ac-
tivity or operation (ἐνέργεια) in itself desirable, and as the
best of these operations is that of the intellect itself, he con-
cludes that the highest of all happinesses is the contemplative
(θεωρητική). This is superior to active happiness, for, while
the latter is human, the former is divine. In the epilogue to
the whole work he shows that, with a view to the practice of
virtue, not only moral discipline, but civil government, are ne-
cessary, and so paves the way for the political theory which is
the proper supplement to his moral philosophy.

The tract On Virtues and Vices, which is printed among Aris-
totle’s writings, is obviously the work of some later Peripatetic.

§ 7. It is now generally admitted that Aristotle’s important
treatise on Politics, in which he carries out the views pro-
pounded in his Nicomachean Ethics, has come down to us in a
very confused arrangement of the eight books of which it con-
sists. The following is the order which best preserves the
sequence of thought in the work :’*—the first three books retain
their original places; they are followed by the seventh and
eighth ; the sixth place is assigned to the fourth book of the
manuscripts ; and the work is concluded by the sixth and fifth
books in this inverted position.® ‘The new arrangement,’ says

1 Eth. Nic. X, 4, § 7.

2 See Spengel, in the Munich Transactions for 1849, and the introductory matter
to Mr. Congreve’s edition of the Politics, Oxford, 1855.

® Marking the books of the older editions by Roman letters, and those of the

900 ARISTOTLE.

the latest editor of the Politics,’ “ brings into close juxtaposition
two books, 6 and 7 (IV. VI.), whose separation is clearly the
result of some accident, and whose re-arrangement is advocated
even by the staunchest opponents of the change in general.
Again, by placing 4 and 5 (VII. VIII.) immediately after
3 (111.), the new order makes Aristotle’s aristocracy, or ideal
state, the second of the two correct forms of government, follow
directly on his treatment of monarchy or the first, and precede
his treatment of Politeia or the third. Whereas, in the exist-
ing arrangement, this third form is interposed between the first
and second. Lastly, after the analysis of the two first ideal
forms has been gone through, he proceeds, by a separate treat-
ment of the elements of the third form, to prepare a way for
the treatment of those elements in combination—in other words,
for the treatment of that third form. Its discussion over, he
goes through the problems connected with existing governments,
their formation and their organization—he elaborates, that is,
the statics of Greek Society. Then, in the absence of any
theory or expectation of change, there is nothing left for him
but to treat of the diseases to which that society was liable, its
chronic state of dissension, its acute one of revolution.’

The first book of the Politics is a general introduction, con-
necting this work with the Nicomachean Ethics. It is, in fact,
a discussion on the principles of @iconomics, on which we have
a separate treatise in our collection of Aristotle’s works. Aris-
totle passes briefly over the relations of male and female, as the
origin of social union, examines at great length the questions
relating to slavery and property in general, and finishes with a
summary review of the family relation, and the qualifications
and duties of the governed. It is his theory that the female
and the slave are essentially and naturally inferior to the male
and the master. ‘ Nature,’ he says, ‘makes nothing in a
niggardly manner, as the cutlers make the Delphic knife to
serve a variety of purposes,’ but everything is made separately

improved arrangement by Arabic numerals, they will stand thus: 1 (I), 2 (11), 3
(IID), 4 (VID), 5 (VILD, 6 (IV), 7 (VD, 8 (V).

1 Mr. Congreve, Preface, p. V.

2 Pol. I. 2: οὔθεν yap ἡ φύσις ποιεῖ τοιοῦτον οἷον χαλκοτύποι τὴν Δελφικὴν μάχαι-
ραν πενιχρῶς ἀλλ᾽ ἕν πρὸς ἕν. A good deal has been said by the commentators about
this Δελφικὴ μάχαιρα. Gottling has a strange notion as to its being made of

POLITICS. 301

with a view to its special and proper work.’ One cannot read
without astonishment the arguments by which Aristotle endea-
yours to justify slavery. Considering that this relationship so
often sprung from the accidents of war, and that the most cul-
tivated Athenian might at any time become the slave of an
uncivilized foreigner, it seems difficult to understand how Aris-
totle’s acuteness and common sense could acquiesce in the sophis-
tical and fallacious reasoning, that there was an analogous
difference between the Greek and the barbarian, between the
master and the slave, between the soul and the body, and his
notion of government as presuming a regard for the interest of
the governed is subverted by the fact that the state of slavery
can never be beneficial to the slave. However, these opinions,
strange as they seem to us, were really entertained by Aris-
totle, and are involved in his famous recommendation to Alex-
ander, to treat the Greeks as their general (ἡγεμονικῶς) and
the barbarians as their master (Ssorortkwc).

The second book is, in one sense, an episode, which might
have been dropped without much injury to the general course
of the reasoning. But Aristotle considered it necessary, per-
haps, to prefix to the statement of his own theory on the sub-
ject a review, not only of former speculations, but also of exist-
ing polities. The first five chapters examine the Republic, the
sixth the Laws of Plato; he then passes on to the proposed
constitution of Phaleas the Chalcedonian, who argued for an
equalization of property ; to that of Hippodamus of Miletus,
with his minute and refined distinctions ; then to those of the
Spartans, Cretans, and Carthaginians; and finishes the book
with miscellaneous remarks on Solon and other lawgivers.

In the third book, Aristotle undertakes a development of his
own ideal. After a preamble, in five chapters, defining the citizen

different materials. It was manifestly used for more than one purpose, and was,
in all probability, a ξιφομάχαιρα, having a straight edge and point at the back, and
a concave edge in front. The Romans had a complicated instrument of the same
kind called the falx vinitoria, which was furnished with a variety of edges in order
to meet the various operations required in vine-pruning. Platorefers to the specific
use of the μάχαιρα as distinguished even from that of the δρέπανον in Resp. I. p.
353 A. The story of the Delphic priest Machereus, who killed Neoptolemus with
his μάχαιρα (see commentators on Pind. N. VII. 42), shows that this instrument
had its special use in that temple. 1 Above, p. 268 [108].

302 ARISTOTLE.

and the identity of the state, and discussing the questions
whether the good man and the good citizen are one and the
same, and whether the mean handicraftsman (βάναυσος) can
be regarded as a citizen, Aristotle proceeds to consider the
different kinds of government. According to the unity, plu-
rality, or multeity of the governing body, the state is a
monarchy, an aristocracy, or a commonwealth (πολιτεία), and if
these act up to their true principles, they consider the interest
of the governed ; otherwise, the monarchy becomes a tyranny,
the aristocracy an oligarchy, and the commonwealth a demo-
cracy. All these varieties are adequately examined, and the
philosopher gives the preference to an aristocracy in which the
ruling body is duly qualified by moral and intellectual edu-
cation ; and this, as we have seen,’ is the established conclusion
of the Socratic schools.

As the third book concludes by referring the best form of
government to the best and most desirable life (πρὸς τὴν
αἱρετωτάτην Cw), the fourth book (4, VII.) in the improved
arrangement begins with inquiring what this best life is. The
discussion of this is expressly regarded as a preface ;* and then
follows the detailed argument about the best form of the state,
the number of its citizens, the geographical features of the
country, the situation of the city, the character of the people,
the castes and constitution, and, above all, the education of the
burgesses. This last and most important question is pursued
in the following book (5, VIII), which is unfortunately left
in a fragmentary state, and it has been conjectured that this in-
completeness has been one of the reasons why the fifth book
has been placed at the end of the work in the old arrangement.

In the last three books (6, IV., 7, VII., 8, V.), Aristotle applies
his practical observations and philosophical theory to a considera-
tion of the actual governments of Greece. © Tyranny being
much less common than oligarchy and democracy, it is of
these two that he chiefly speaks. Like the literary men of the

1 Above, chapter XX XVII. 8 2.

2 Pol. 111. 18: ἐπεὶ δὲ τρεῖς φαμὲν εἶναι τὰς ὀρθὰς πολιτείας, τούτων δ᾽ ἀναγκαῖον
ἀρίστην εἶναι τὴν ὑπὸ ἀρίστων οἰκονομουμένην, τοιαύτη δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐν ἧ συμβέβηκεν ἣ ἕνα
συμπάντων ἢ γένος ὅλον ἢ πλῆθος ὑπέρεχον εἶναι κατ᾽ ἀρετήν, τῶν μὲν ἄρχεσθαι
δυναμένων τῶν δ᾽ ἄρχειν πρὸς τὴν αἱρετωτάτην ζωήν.

3 Pol. 4, VIL. 4: ἐπεὶ δὲ πεφροιμίασται τὰ νῦν εἰρημένα.

NATURAL HISTORY. 808

preceding century, he thought that the best average government
was that in which the rulers were found in the middle class :}
and between oligarchy and democracy, he gives the preference
to the latter; showing, at length, that the tendency to faction
(στάσις) and revolution (wera(30An) was less in democracy than
in oligarchy, and therefore that the former was practically the
most healthy and permanent of existing constitutions. The work
terminates rather abruptly with some strictures on the Republic
of Plato, in regard to the laws of revolutionary change laid
down in that dialogue.

The main points of the science of Ciconomics are discussed
in the first book of the Politics, but we have a separate treatise
on this subject in the collection of Aristotle's works”? <A
quotation in the fragment of Philodemus found among the
manuscripts at Herculaneum attributes the first book to
Theophrastus ;* and Niebuhr has shown that the second book
was probably written in Asia Minor after the death of Ophelas,
in Ol. 118, 1, B.c. 308."

§ 8. In comparing the literary remains of Aristotle with
those of Plato, we cannot but be struck with the extent and
importance of the physical speculations ‘in which the former
engaged, and the very small and subordinate value assigned to
natural philosophy by the latter. Whereas the Timeus is the
only dialogue in which Plato enters professedly on a theory
respecting the visible world, we find that Aristotle composed
many elaborate works—some of the most important being no
longer extant—on every detail of physical science; and even
his work On the Soul, which we have considered with reference
to his metaphysical speculations, was probably connected very
intimately with this series of treatises. So that it has been
said with justice by an ancient writer that while Aristotle
physiologizes in his metaphysics, Plato’s physiology is but an
application of his metaphysical reasonings.°

The physical works of Aristotle may be considered as forming

1 Pol, V.6, IV. 11. See above, chapter XXX VII. ὃ 2.
2 Οἰκονομικῶν d, B’. 3 Herculanens, Volwmina, III. p. vii. and xxviii.
4 Niebuhr’s Kleine Schriften, pp. 412—416.

5 Schol. Aristot. 26,27: ᾿Αριστοτέλης μὲν ἀεὶ θεολογῶν φυσιολογεῖ, Πλάτων δὲ
ἀεὶ φυσιολογῶν θεολογεῖ.

804 ARISTOTLE.

the integral parts of a regular and systematic series, and the
following suggestions have been made for their arrangement :'—

I. The introduction is formed by the eight books of ‘the
physical lectures’ (φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις, naturalis auscultatio), which,
as Hegel says, are ‘a metaphysic of physics.’ They treat of
principles (ἀρχαί) and their number, of motion, of space and
time, of the first unmoved moving power (πρῶτον κίνουν
ἀκίνητον), the perpetually moved (ἀεικίνητον), which is neces-
sarily circular, and according to the ancients realized in the
heaven ; and here we have a transition to :—

II. The four books ‘concerning heaven’ (περὶ οὐρανοῦ, de celo).
According to Aristotle, this heaven is an unchangeable region
(ἀεὶ ταυτὸν Kal ὡσαύτως ἔχον) , the first of all bodies (τὸ πρῶτον
τῶν σωμάτων), which, being itself indestructible, is the opposite
of all that is corruptible.

III. Next in succession to the treatise on heaven, we have
the two books ‘on generation and destruction’ (περὶ γενέσεως
καὶ φθορας). Here he developes his theory that the first prin-
ciples are not the four elements which were supposed, after the
time of Empedocles, to produce life and death by their inter-
mixture, but composite nature itself, the fundamental properties
being the hot, the cold, the dry, and the moist; and of these,
the mixture of hot and dry makes fire, that of hot and moist
makes air, that of cold and dry makes earth, and that of cold
and moist makes water.’

IV. The further prosecution of these speculations is found in ~
the four books ‘on meteorology’ (μετεωρολογικά, de meteoris),
or rather in the first three of them; for the fourth book does
not stand in any real connexion with the others, and it has
been conjectured* that it was a separate tract entitled ‘on the
consolidation of bodies’ (περὶ τῆς τῶν σωάτων συστάσεως).

1 See Spengel, iiber die Reihenfolge der naturwissensch. Schriften des A ristoteles :
Munich Transactions, 1849, pp. 143 sqq. There is also a good summary of
Aristotle’s labours in physical philosophy, in Dr. Whewell’s History of the Inductive
Sciences, vol. I. section 2.

2 De Gener. et corrupt. II. 3, § 2: τὸ μὲν γὰρ πῦρ θερμὸν καὶ ξηρόν, ὁ δ᾽ ἀὴρ θερμὸν
καὶ ὑγρόν (οἷον ἀτμὶς yap ὁ ἀήρ), τὸ δ᾽ ὕδωρ ψυχρὸν καὶ ὑγρόν, ἡ δὲ γῆ ψυχρὸν καὶ
ξηρόν, ὥστ᾽ εὐλόγως διανέμεσθαι τὰς διαφορὰς τοῖς πρώτοις σώμασι καὶ τὸ πλῆθος
αὐτῶν εἶναι κατὰ λόγον.

3 Spengel, u.s., p. 156. This title is indicated in several passages ; for instance,

NATURAL HISTORY. 305

_ Y. The treatise ‘on the universe’ (περὶ κόσμου), which
follows next in the Parva Naturalia, is generally admitted to be
an extraneous addition to Aristotle’s works. It is, in fact, a
general review of the books ‘on heaven, ‘on generation,’ &c.,
and ‘on meteorology’ (II., III., [V.); and its rhetorical style
and stoical tone show that Aristotle could not have written it.
Various suppositions have been made respecting the authorship.
One critic attributes it to Chrysippus.’ Another writer main-
tains that it is the Greek translation of a work with the same
title by Apuleius;? and, conversely, the latest editor of
Apuleius® regards the Greek as the original, and the Latin as
the translation.

VI. We are informed that Aristotle wrote no less than fifty,
or, as one writer says, seventy treatises on his favourite subject
of zoology. Of these we have but a small portion. It has
been shown that the general introduction was furnished by the
first of the four books, still extant, under the title ‘on the
parts of animals’ (περὶ ζῴων μορίων). In the sixth chapter
we have an expression which seems to furnish the transition
from the discussion of indestructible substances (ἀφθαρτα)" to
those of the world of life; and it would be in accordance with
Aristotle’s general procedure that he should discuss the parts
or elements before he examined the composite structure or the
animal as a whole.

VII. For a similar reason, he probably intended his treatise
‘on the generation of animals’ (περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως), in five
books, to be a preparatory treatise on the causes (διότι) of
organic natural bodies, without which he could hardly discuss

c. 8: ἐκ μὲν οὖν ὕδατος καὶ γῆς τὰ ὁμοιομερὴ σώματα συνίσταται; ο. 10: ἐξ ὧν
ἤδη συνέστηκε τὰ ὁμοιομερῆ; c. 12: ἔχομεν γὰρ ἐξ ὧν ἡ τῶν ὁμοιομερῶν
φύσις συνέστηκε... . δηλωθέντων δὲ τούτων τὰ μὴ ὁμοιομερῇ θεωρητέον καὶ τέλος
τὰ ἐκ τούτων συνεστῶτα, οἷον ἄνθρωπον, φυτόν, καὶ τᾶλλα τὰ τοιαῦτα.

_ ἢ Osann, Beitr. z. Gr. u. Rim. Litt. Gesch. I. pp. 141—283.

2 Stahr, Arist. bei den Rimern, p. 165.

8 Hildebrand, Prol. ad Apuleiwm, I. pp. XLI. sqq.
peeubiny,H.V. ὙΠ. τη, 66.

5 Titze, de Aristotelis operum serie, p. 55, 8.

6 ἐπεὶ δὲ περὶ ἐκείνων (τῶν ἀφθάρτων) διήλθομεν λέγοντες τὸ φαινόμενον ἡμῖν,
λοιπὸν περὶ τῆς ζωικῆς φύσεως εἰπεῖν μηδὲν παραλιπόντας εἰς δύναμιν μήτε ἀτιμότερον
μήτε τιμιώτερον. ,

Vou. II. x

306 ARISTOTLE.

in a satisfactory manner the phenomena (ὅτι) themselves.
Passages may be cited’ to a contrary effect from the books
themselves ; but if these passages are carefully examined, they
will be found to justify the inference that with Aristotle the
general speculation preceded the description of life as it exists ?
and the books on natural history are full of references to his
theory of generation, as if some previous acquaintance with it
was implied.

VIII. Of the great work ‘on the history of animals’ (περὶ
ζῴων ἱστορία or ζωϊκὴ ἱστορία) we have only nine books com-
plete. There are different opinions respecting the tenth book,
which is added in the manuscripts and the usual editions.
Scaliger proposed to insert it between the seventh and eighth
books ; according to Camus, it was the treatise mentioned by
Diogenes under the title ‘ about non-productiveness’ (ὑπὲρ τοῦ
μὴ γεννᾶν, de non gignendo) ; Schneider questions its genuine-
ness; and it is attributed to the Latin recension of Aristotle’s
works in a notice which appears in several manuscripts. This
work of Aristotle’s is in many respects a wonderful performance.
And its author may be regarded as the first founder of zoology
and comparative anatomy. The books which we have contain
a methodical description of the different varieties of the animal

1 See Spengel, u.s. p. 161.

2 One of the most important passages is the following ; De gen. Anim. v. 1, 8. δὲ
ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐλέχθη κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις λόγοις οὐ διὰ τὸ γίγνεσθαι ἕκάστον
ποῖόν τι διὰ τοῦτο ποῖόν τι ἐστι, ὅσα τεταγμένα καὶ ὡρισμένα ἔργα τῆς φύδεως ἐστιν,
ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον διὰ τὸ εἶναι τοιαδὶ γίγνεται τοιαῦτα" τῇ γὰρ οὐσίᾳ ἡ γένεσις ἀκολουθεῖ
καὶ τῆς οὐσίας ἕνεκά ἐστιν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ αὕτη τῇ γενέσε. Now the πρώτη φιλοσοφία
is expressly a consideration of the doctrine of causes, and the very fact that, as
we have seen, the σωμάτων σύστασις is considered after the elements have been
discussed, would seem to show that the description of the animal, as a particular
σύστασις, would follow the general theory of its procreation. Otherwise we must
infer that even the Politics were antecedent to the books on generation ; for
Aristotle says (Pol. 4 [VII.], 15): φανερὸν δὴ Τοῦτό ye πρῶτον μὲν καθάπερ ἐν
τοῖς ἄλλοις, ὡς ἡ γένεσις ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ἐστὶ καὶ τὸ τέλος ἀπό Twos ἀρχῆς ἄλλου τέλους.
For if the birth of the child is not the first step in the process of education, this
can only be understood by substituting importance for priority. The unfinished
state of the natural history is some argument for the conclusion that these details
were prosecuted subsequently to the foundation of the principles, and references
like the following may be very well understood as applying to investigations still
in progress; De partibus Animal. IIL. 5, 18: τὸ δὲ μετ᾽ ἀκριβείας ὡς ἔχδυδιν al
φλέβες πρὸς ἀλλήλας Ex Te τῶν ἀνατομιῶν δεῖ θεωρεῖν καὶ ἐκ τῆς ζωικῆς ioroplas.

MISCELLANIES. 307

kingdom; and the various animals are exhibited according to
their characteristic features, with especial reference to their
mode of life, instinctive habits, and the reproduction of the
species.

Aristotle’s other works on natural philosophy are an essay
‘on the motion of animals’ (περὶ ζῴων κινήσεως), a series of
tracts on memory, sleep, dreams, and divination in dreams,
longevity, youth and age, respiration, life and death, which are
collected together as his Parva Naturalia, and a fragment ‘ on
colours’ (περὶ χρωμάτων). The two books ‘on plants’ (περὶ
φυτῶν) seem to be described in ‘ the prologue of the interpreter’
(πρόλογος τοῦ ἑρμηνέως) as a translation from the Latin version
of an Arabic edition of the work.’ Although Theophrastus is
better known by his performances as a botanist, there can be
little doubt that Aristotle was the real founder of botany as a
science.

It is usual to class the three books ‘on the soul’ with the
physical works of Aristotle, and there can be no doubt that they
may be regarded strictly in this connexion. But the work belongs
also to his theory of the philosophy of mind, and we have
preferred to consider it with his metaphysical treatises. Aris-
totle’s writings on anatomy, to which he frequently refers, and
one of which, in eight books, is mentioned by Diogenes, are
entirely lost.

δ 9. Besides the treatises on the main branches of philo-
sophy which we have considered in this brief review, Aristotle
has left a number of miscellaneous works, which cannot be
included in the general classification. Thus, we have a col-
lection of ‘ Problems’ (προβλήματα), in thirty-six sections,
which abound in acute suggestions on almost every department
of knowledge. They are put in the form of questions; thus :?
‘Why does an unknown road seem to be, ceteris paribus,

1 E. H. F. Meyer maintains that this book is a compilation by Nicolas of
Damascus from the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and has so published
it: Nicolat Damasceni de Plantis libri duo Aristoteli vulgo adscripti, Lips. 1841.
see p. XVIII.

2 Problem. XXX. 4: διὰ τί δοκεῖ ἡμῖν πλείων εἶναι ἡ ὁδός, ὅταν wh εἰδότες
πόση τις ἐστι βαδίζωμεν μᾶλλον ἢ ὅταν εἰδότες, ἐὰν τὰ ἄλλα ὁμοίως τύχωμεν
ἔχοντες ;

x 2

308 ARISTOTLE:

longer than one with which we are acquainted? Or is it
because our knowledge of it is a knowledge of number? For
that which is indefinite and that which is unnumbered are one
and the same; and the indefinite is always more than the
finite,’ and so on. Abelard’s treatise called Sic et Non is an
analogous work, but in this the cases are stated pro and contra
with reference only to authority. The ‘surprising stories’
(θαυμάσια ἀκούσματα) are a collection of anecdotes chiefly
relating to the curiosities of natural history. It is not at all
certain that this tract was written by Aristotle. From the
commencement of the ‘ Mechanics’ (μηχανικά)" it would seem
that this tract had some connexion, at least in the minds of
those who arranged Aristotle’s works, with the θαυμάσια
ἀκούσματα, which it follows in the editions. Its form, how-
ever, is that of the ‘ Problems,’

Andronicus of Rhodes had collected twenty books of Aris-
totle’s letters,’ and there. was a later collection by Artemon in
eight books.* These are all lost; and the six letters now
attributed to the philosopher are spurious.’ His speeches also
have not been preserved. We have already referred to his
poem on virtue, and to the epigrams attributed to him.®

ὃ το. Aristotle’s writings are not less remarkable for their
peculiar style and literary form than for their extent and the
importance of their subjects, which he was the first to treat in
a methodical and scientific manner. The parsimonious diction
and the strict regularity with which the thoughts and facts are
marshalled justify the remark of the poet Gray, that, when we
are reading Aristotle, we feel as if we were studying a table
of contents. And a more recent writer has accounted for this
peculiarity by a reference to the characteristics which distin-
guish Aristotle from his great teacher, Plato. ‘To collect all
possible facts, to arrange and classify them, was his ambition,
and perhaps his appointed function; no one is less tempted to
find any deep meaning in facts, or to grope after it. In like
manner, to get words pressed and settled into a definition is

1 θαυμάζεται τῶν μὲν κατὰ φύσιν συμβαινόντων K.T.r.,
2 Demetrius, De Elocutione, “ὃ 231. 3 David, Categ. p. 24.
4 See Stahr, Aristotelia, II. pp. 167 sqq. 5 Above, § 1.

STYLE OF HIS WRITINGS. 309

his highest aim ; the thought that there is a life in words, that
they are connected with the life in us, and may lead at all to
the interpretation of its marvels, never was admitted into his
mind, or at least never tarried there,’ If the philosopher’s
chief recommendation had been his style, he would have had
few readers. He has nothing to attract those, who prefer the
form and outer embellishments of a work to its subject-matter
and the scientific results which it presents. Like Bishop
Butler, one of the best of our English moralists, he repels all
those who open his books with any other view than a desire of
obtaining knowledge and amassing the materials and the results
of thought. Those especially, who come to the study of
Aristotle after contracting a familiarity with Plato, cannot but
be impressed with the feeling that they have entered upon an
entirely new phase of the Greek language—that they have
passed, as it were, from a sunlit garden, gay with flowers,
to a dark and chilly reading-room. But although Aristotle’s
language is in the highest degree jejune and unornamented, he
is never really obscure except when this arises from excessive
brevity. And it may be inferred, from the fragments of his
dialogues, and from his scolium on virtue, that the sobriety of
his diction did not arise from any inability to express himself
in more florid. language, and that he adopted deliberately, and
perhaps by ar effort, a mode of writing which he considered
more appropriate to: philosophical imvestigations than the
exuberant and often redundant phraseology of the conventional
rhetoric. The importance which he attached to conciseness
and fixity of expression is shown by the fact that he has
introduced a considerable number of well-defined words and
phrases, which often. obviate the necessity for circumlocution.’

1 Maurice,. Ancient Philosophy, p. 163.

2 The following are some of the words and phrases which: Aristotle either intro-
duced, or used with some precise and original distinctness of meaning: ἐντελέχεια,
ἐνέργεια, δύναμις, ἕξις, ἄλογος, μεσότης,. κατηγορία, συλλογισμός, ἐνθύμημα, παρά-
δείγμα, ἐπαγωγή, πρότασις, ὕλη, τὸ ὑποκείμενον, ῥῆμα, ὄνομα, συνώνυμος, ὁμώνυμος,
παρώνυμος, ἀκράτης, ἀκόλαστος, οὐσία, τί ἐστί, τὸ τί ἢν εἶναι, δικαίωμα ; and to
these many others might be added. Bacon says that Aristotle ‘nova artium
vocabula pro libitu cudendi licentiam usurpavit’ (De Augm. Scient. III. 4, p. 584,
ed. Ellis, where the reader will see Bacon’s comparison of the correlative ambition
of Aristotle and his pupil Alexander).

310 ARISTOTLE.

And, as we have already mentioned, one of the works included
in his Metaphysica is an elaborate investigation of many terms
and notions which seemed to him to require a more accurate
definition.’ There are some to whom this logical precision,
and scrupulous exactness in the employment of terms, will
seem more than an equivalent for the graces of style and the
golden flow of elocution, which Aristotle might have exhibited,
if he had chosen to write like his contemporaries; and it will
be maintained that it is easy to extract, even from his most
methodical works, many passages of rare power and singular
felicity. But we must admit that we belong to the number of
those who are disposed to refuse to this great philosopher the
humbler praise of having always written his best ; and we must
express our regret that his literary fame is not supported by
adequate remains of his more popular and attractive compo-
sitions,

1 Metaph. A, περὶ τῶν ποσαχῶς λεγομένων. The terms or notions examined
are: 1. ἀρχή, ‘principle;’ 2. alriov, ‘cause;’ 3. στοιχεῖον, ‘element; 4. φύσις,
‘nature ;’ 5. ἀναγκαῖον, ‘necessary;’ 6. τὸ ἕν, ‘unity; 7. τὸ ὄν, ‘entity; 8.
οὐσία, ‘substance ; 9. ταὐτό, ‘identity;’ το. ἀντικείμενα, ‘contraries :᾿ 11. πρό-
Tepa καὶ ὕστερα, ‘antecedents and consequents ; 12. δύναμις, ἀδύνατον, δυνατόν,
‘ potentiality, impossibility, and possibility; 13. πόσον, ‘ quantity;’ 14. ποιόν,
‘ quality ;’ 15. πρός τι, ‘relation; 16. τέλειον, ‘perfect : 17. πέρας, ‘limit;’ 18.
καθ᾽ αὑτό, ‘self-existence ; 19—22. διάθεσις, ἕξις, πάθος, στέρησις, “ disposition,
habit, affection, privation ;’ 23. ἔχειν, ‘state :;᾿ 24. ἔκ τινος εἶναι, ‘matter, cause,’
&c.; 25, 26. μέρος, ὅλον, ‘part and whole;’ 27, κολυβόν, ‘mutilated ;’ 28. γένος
‘genus ;’ 29. ψεῦδος, ‘falsity ; 30. συμβεβηκός, ‘accident.’

311

CHAPTER XLI.

DEMOSTHENES,

§ 1. Life of Demosthenes. ὃ 2. Harangues to the people, chiefly relating-to Philip
of Macedon. ὃ 3. Orationson public causes. ὃ 4. Speeches against Alschines.

§ 5. Speeches in the law courts on private causes. § 6. Style and characteris-
tics of Demosthenes.

§ ας ROM the two greatest philosophers of ancient Greece,

we pass to the orator, whose eminence, as a master
of eloquence, is quite equal to theirs as masters of human
thought ; and it is not a little remarkable, that such men as
Aristotle and Demosthenes should have been, in every sense of
the term, contemporaries. It is certain that they died in the
same year, and it is very probable that they were of the same
age when they died. The caution, with which we entered on
a brief sketch of the two great philosophers, must be repeated,
in a corresponding form, at the beginning of the present
chapter. As we then reminded the reader that we were
writing the history of Greek literature, not that of Greek
philosophy, so we must now beg him to remember, that we are
not engaged with that political history of Greece, in which
Demosthenes was one of the most prominent actors. The
space which this orator occupies in the pages of Thirlwall and
Grote, to say nothing of the fact that he furnishes the subject
for at least one separate work’ of considerable extent, may
well excuse us from any attempt to trace the events in which
he bore a part, and to estimate fully his character as a states-
man. It will be quite sufficient for our present purpose, if we
give a short account of his personal biography, and of his
speeches considered as literary compositions.

1 For example, A. G. Becker's Demosthenes als Staatsmann und Redner,
2 volumes, 8vo. Halle, 1815, 1816; the same writer's Demosthenes als Staats-
biirger, Redner wnd Schriftsteller, Quedlinburg, 1830—1834; A. Schifer’s Demo-
sthenes und seine Zeit, Leipsig, 1856, 1857.

312 DEMOSTHENES.

It is still a matter of controversy in what year DemostHENES
was born.’ The earliest date is Ol. 98, 4. B.c. 385; the
latest Ol. 99, 4. B.c. 380. . His father, who bore the same name,
apparently not an uncommon one at Athens, was an opulent —
citizen of the demos of Pzania, who carried on a thriving
business as a cutler and cabinet-maker, and was also engaged
in commercial transactions to a considerable extent. His
mother was not of pure Athenian descent, though there is no
reason to doubt that she was, on both sides, of Greek extraction.
She was one of the two daughters and co-heiresses of Gylon, a
banished Athenian, who had ingratiated himself with a Greek
prince on the Cimmerian Bosporus, had received from his
patron a town named Cepi in the island to the east of that
inlet of the sea, and had there married a rich woman, probably
the heiress of some Greek settler in that well colonized region.*
The two daughters of Gylon were sent to Athens with large
dowries, and married two Athenian citizens; the younger
became the wife of Demochares, and the elder, Cleobule, was
the mother of Demosthenes.

The ample property of his father, increased by the handsome
portion of his mother, seemed. to destine Demosthenes to a life
of opulent obscurity. It happened, however, that he lost his
father while only seven years old, and was left with a younger
sister under the care of three guardians, Aphobus, the son of

1 The earliest date, Ol. 98, 4. B.C. 385, is maintained by Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. of
Gr. V. p. 248, Philological Museum, II. pp. 389 sqq.). Mr. Clinton (Fasté
Hellenici, 11. Append. 20), C. K. Hermann (de anno natali Demosthenis, Gott.
1846, reprinted in Dindorf’s Demosthenes, vol. VI. pp. 730 sqq.), and Mr. Grote
(Hist. of Gr. XI. p. 369) adopt the year Ol. 99, 3. Β.0. 382, 381, and Bohnecke
(Forschungen, pp. 1-94) agrees with Dionysius (ad Ammeuwm, 4) in dating the
orator’s birth in the archonship of Demophilus, Ol. 99, 4. B.c. 380. We incline to
Mr. Clinton’s date. ς

2 Dr. Thirlwall (V. p. 247) calls him a merchant on the strength of I. Aphob, p.
816. The nature of his property may be seen in the calculations reprinted from an
English translation of -Voemel in Dindorf’s Demosthenes, VII. pp. 1053 sqq.
Juvenal’s intimation (X. 127132) that the orator’s father was a working black-
smith is an exaggeration or a mistake.

3 Plut. Demosth. 4, isch. adv. Ctesiph. p. 78, Dem. TE. Aph. p. 835. Cepi
(Κῆποι, ‘the gardens’) was a Milesian settlement and a considerable town (Plin.
H. N. VI. 6). It lay in the modern island of Taman, in the sea of Corocondame
(Strabo, p. 495) over against Kertch and Jenicale.

HIS LIFE. 313

his father’s sister, who was to marry Cleobule with a dowry of
14 talent, Demophon, the son of his father’s brother, who was
to marry the daughter when she came of age, and to receive
at once her portion of two talents, and an old friend, Therip-
pides, who was to enjoy the interest of τὸ talent till Demo-
sthenes came of age.’ These guardians seem to have behaved
as Greek guardians too often did.* They neglected the con-
ditions of the will, and squandered the property confided to
their charge to such an extent that out of fourteen talents,
which the father left at his death, they paid less than two
talents to the son on his completing the age of 18, when he
was legally entitled to undertake the management of his own
property After vainly attempting to obtain an amicable
settlement of the accounts, he brought an action against
Aphobus, and obtained damages to the amount of ten talents,’
part of which he must have received, as he appears to have
performed some of the most expensive liturgies or public
duties.» But there can be little doubt that the injustice to
which he was exposed at first starting in life, and the fear of
losing all, or nearly all, his patrimony, stimulated him to

1 Dem. I. Aph. pp: 814, 816, 11. 840.
2 It was almost a fixed phrase in classical Greek to say of the orphan that he
was ‘torn in pieces’ by his guardians; see Soph. Ajax, 505 sqq.:
οἴκτειρε δ᾽, ὦ vat, παῖδα τὸν σὸν, εἰ νέας
τροφῆς στερηθείς, σοῦ διοίσεται μόνος
ὑπ᾽ ὀρφανιστῶν μὴ φίλων.

Cf. Herod. IIT. 53: τὸν οἶκον τοῦ πατρὸς διαφορηθέντα. Dem. I. Steph. 1120.
25: ὑπὸ τούτου καὶ τῶν τοιούτων διαφορηθείς. Dio Chrys, XLIII. 506, C: ὑπὸ
τῶν ξυγγενῶν καὶ τῶν ἐπιτρόπων διασπασθῆναι.

3 Dem. I. Aph. pp. 812, 832, 815. Onetor, p. 865.

4 See Westermann, Prolegomena ad Orationes Tutorias, reprinted in Dindorf’s
Demosthenes, pp. 1045 sqq.

5 Aischines insinuates (adv. Ctesiph. 78) that by the expensiveness of these
liturgies, coupled with his own profligate extravagance, he reduced himself to the
necessity of writing speeches for hire: περὶ δὲ τὴν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν δίαιταν τίς ἐστιν ; ἐκ
τριηράρχου λογογράφος ἀνεφάνη, τὰ πατρῷα καταγελάστως προέμενος. We are
surprised by Mr. Grote’s remark (XT. p. 372) that he does not ‘ clearly understand
what is meant’ by these last words. Is the difficulty in the adverb κατα-
γελάστως, which means ‘in a profligate manner’ (Alsch. 6. Timarch. p..5, 13), oF
in the verb προίεσθαι, which is regularly used in the sense ‘to part with one’s
money’ (¢.g. pro Phorm. p. 946, το, 6. Dionysod. p. 1297, 14)?

314 DEMOSTHENES.

commence those laborious studies which ultimately made him
the greatest orator of ancient or modern times,.

It does not appear that, while the guardians of Demosthenes
were wasting or embezzling his property, they neglected to give
him an education suitable to his supposed circumstances. He
charges his guardians with not paying his teachers; but in
contrasting his early advantages with those of his rival Aischines,
he boasts that while the latter was a teacher in a low school,
he was himself a regular attendant at some place of elementary
instruction.? The tradition, that he received instruction from
Plato and Isocrates,> may have arisen from a not unnatural
wish to connect the greatest orator with the principal literary
men of the age immediately preceding his own. There is
probably more foundation for the statement that he was taught
rhetoric by Iszeus, and was assisted by that orator in the com-
position of his speeches against his guardians.‘ His first
beginnings in a study of rhetoric, and his ambition to become
a public speaker, are generally attributed to the fact that he
was taken by his tutors, while still a boy, to hear the cele-
brated Callistratus, the well-known friend of Iphicrates, defend
himself and Chabrias on the charge of surrendering Oropus to
the Thebans. This is supposed to have been in the year B.c.
366, when Demosthenes was certainly not more than eight or
nine years old.*> Whatever may have been the extent of literary
cultivation which he received in his youth, it appears that
Demosthenes did not enjoy the gymnastic training which
formed an equally essential part of the early discipline of young

Athenians. It is supposed that his delicate constitution, and —

his mother’s anxiety for the health of her only son, preyented
him from joining in the exercises of the palestra.£ This

11, Aph. p. 828, 6. ;

2 De Corond, p. 312, 22: ἐμοὶ μὲν τοίνυν ὑπῆρξεν, παιδὶ μὲν ὄντι φοιτᾶν εἰς τὰ
προσήκοντα διδασκαλεῖα καὶ ἔχειν ὅσα χρὴ τὸν μηδὲν αἰσχρὸν ποιήσοντα δι᾽ ἔνδειαν.
Ibid. p. 315. 8: ἐδίδασκες γράμματα, ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐφοίτων.

3 Plut. Dem. 5, Vit. X. Orat. 837, 844, Cic. Brut. 31, &e.

4 Plut. Vit. X. Orat. 839, 844. Liban. Vit. Dem. p. 3. Argum. ad Orat, 6.
Onet. p. 875.

5 Plut. Dem. 5. Vite decem Oratorum, p. 844. Hermippus apud Aul, Gell.
III. τὰς

§ Thirlwall, V. p. 248.

.

HIS LIFE. 315

deficiency, coupled with his lisping articulation,’ want of mus-
cular vigour, and effeminate attire, obtained for him the name
of Βατάλος, ‘the infantine babbler,’? a name which had also
another meaning in the nursery,’ and was used to countenance
an imputation of the vilest impudicity.*. Without any double
signification, the powerful coterie, which espoused the cause of
his guardians, contrived to fix upon him the name of ᾿Αργάς,
‘the viper,’® as though he had turned round and bitten the
nurturers of his youth.

The success which attended the prosecution of Aphobus, by
no means guaranteed his eminence as a public speaker. The
orations are still extant, and exhibit so much talent that they
have been attributed to Iszeus himself, who probably assisted in
their composition, just as Demosthenes wrote many of his
speeches to be delivered in court by the parties themselves. It
does not appear that any great merits of elocution were expected
in these forensic harangues. Indeed, in many cases, they may
have been read to the dicasts or jurymen. At any rate,
Demosthenes had no natural advantages as an orator. A feeble
frame and a weak voice, a shy and awkward manner, the
ungraceful gesticulations of one whose limbs had never been
duly exercised in the palestra, and the defective articulation to
which we have already referred, would have deterred most men
from even attempting to address an Athenian assembly. He
had the additional discouragement of failing on his first
attempt. Worst of all, he was not fluent as an extempore
speaker, and even in his best days, he required preparation,
and was liable to break down if he spoke under novel circum-

1 He could not pronounce the letter p till he had conquered his natural thickness
of speech by long practice ; Cic. Div. II. 46, § 96.

2 See Dissen and Schaefer, ad Orat. de Corond, p. 288,17. Naeke, de Battaro
Catonis, Rhein. Mus. for 1828, pp. 113 sqq.

3 Harpocration, s.v.; Εὔπολις δὲ τὸν πρωκτὸν βάταλον λέγει" μή ποτε οὖν ἔνθεν
τοὺς κιναίδους βατάλους λέγουσι. Cf. Aisch. c. Tim. p. 17. 42: ταύτην ἐξ ὑποκο-
ρίσματος τίτθης τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν ἔχω.

4 Aisch, Fals. Leg. p. 41, 13: ἐν παισὶ μὲν ὧν ἐκλήθη δι’ αἰσχρουργίαν τινα καὶ
κιναιδίαν Βάταλος.

5 Aischines, ibid.: ἐκ παίδων δ᾽ ἀπαλλαττόμενος καὶ δεκαταλάντους δίκας ἑκάστῳ
τῶν ἐπιτρόπων λαγχάνων A pyas ἐκλήθη.

§ Plutarch, Dem. 6: τὸ πρῶτον ἐντυγχάνων τῷ δήμῳ θορύβοις περιέπιπτε καὶ
κατεγελᾶτο δι᾽ ἀήθειαν τοῦ λόγου.

316 DEMOSTHENES.

stances, as when he first addressed Philip of Macedon in the
presence of his court. But the ambition and resolute perse-
verauce of Demosthenes enabled him to triumph over every
disadvantage. He improved his bodily powers by running;
his voice by speaking aloud as he walked up hill, or declaimed
against the roar of the sea at Phalerum. He practised grace-
ful delivery before a tall looking-glass, and controlled his unruly
articulation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.' His want
of fluency he remedied by diligent composition, and by copying
and committing to memory the works of the best authors. Of
these his favourite was Thucydides, and it is said that he wrote
out the eight books of that historian no less than eight times,’
and could almost recite him from memory. Moreover, he
read carefully all the τέχναι, or treatises on oratory, that he
could procure.’ And he prepared himself for the public exer-
cise of his talents not only by writing declamations for practice
on all the great subjects of the day, but also by composing
speeches for the parties in private suits and public prosecutions.
In this way he gradually surmounted all his difficulties. The
friendly actor Satyrus was at hand to correct the faults of his
delivery,‘ and old men in the assembly began to say that his
speeches reminded them of the school of Pericles.’ And at
last he came forth as the acknowledged leader of the assembly,
and, even by the confession of his deadliest enemies, the first
orator in Greece.

The period, during which the name of Demosthenes identifies
itself with the history of Athens, was eminently critical both
for that city and for the whole of Greece. It was a time when
an able and patriotic statesman, like Demosthenes, might have
done greater service than any of his predecessors, if the people
would have listened to his advice, and acted energetically in
carrying out the counsels which he gave them. Unfortunately
this was not the case. When Demosthenes delivered his first

1 Plutarch, Dem. 4—9. 2 Lucian, adv. Indoctum, ο:. 4.

3 Plut. Dem.c. 5. Vit. X. Orat. p. 844 B.

4 Plut. Dem. c. 7. Satyrus made him recite a speech from Euripides or
Sophocles, and then delivered it himself with all the graces of histrionic action.

5 Eunomus the Thriasian is mentioned as one of those who told Demosthenes
that he had τὸν λόγον ὁμοιότατον τῷ Περικλέους, Plut.. (Dem. ο. 6).

HIS LIFE. 317

political oration, that on the Symmorie, or companies for the
payment of the property-tax, in the year 354 B.c.,’ Persia was
still the only object of apprehension to united Greece, and
Philip of Macedon was not regarded with the suspicions which
he afterwards so fully justified. He had taken no part in the
Social war, and had not interfered with the proceedings of
Athens either in the Thracian Chersonesus orin Eubeea. Only
three years after this the Phocian war broke out, and was
closely followed by that between Philip and Olynthus; and
while the latter led to misunderstandings between Philip and the
Athenians, and compromised their interests in the north, the
former ended in bringing Philip to Beotia, and enabled him,
as the victor at Chzeronea, to dictate his own terms at Athens.
While these events were in progress, the independence of
Athens was staked on her policy in regard to the king of
Macedon. And though a large and influential party were
unwilling to oppose themselves actively and openly to the
ambitious designs of Philip, others, who saw the danger, were
anxious to encounter any risk rather than acquiesce in aggres-
sions, which could have only one effect on the power of their
country. ‘To this anti-Macedonian party, Demosthenes con-
sistently belonged. Some of those who advocated the cause
of peace at any price, such as Phocion, were well-meaning, but
mistaken politicians; others, such as Philocrates and Auschines,
were probably, or rather certainly, influenced by corrupt
motives. Whatever doubt may be cast on the character of
Demosthenes,’ there can be no question as to his general
patriotism ; and his faults, whatever they were, must be regarded
as cancelled hy his banishment and death, the consequences of

1 See Grote, Hist, of Greece, XI. p. 398.

2 See Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, V. p. 255. The mere fact that Quintilian
places Demosthenes and Cicero on the same footing in regard to the imputations
on their character as men and citizens, shows that he did not accept these imputa-
tions as a serious deduction from their merits. He says (XII. 1, $14): ‘ Orator
ergo Demosthenes non fuit? Atqui malum virum accepimus. Non Cicero? atqui
hujus quoque mores multi reprehenderunt. Quid agam? Magna responsi invidia
subeunda est, mitigande sunt prius aures. Mihi hine nec Demosthenes tam
gravi morum dignus videtur invidia, ut omnia, que in eum ab inimicis congesta
sunt, credam, cum pulcherrima ejus in republica consilia, et finem vite clarum
legam ; nec M. Tullio defuisse video in ulla parte civis optimi voluntatem.’

318 DEMOSTHENES.

the opposition to the Macedonian power, which ‘had distin-
guished him through life.

The career of Demosthenes, so far as it contributes to explain
his position in the history of Greek literature, may be described
very briefly. His guardians seem to have belonged to a party
of opulent and profligate men at Athens, who set the laws at
defiance, and, trusting to their wealth and influence and mutual
support, treated their poorer fellow-citizens as though they
belonged to an inferior class. Among these persons, who were
an active cause of the ruin of Athens, were Midias, Androtion,
and Timocrates; and Demosthenes came into contact with the
first of these on his own account, while he furnished a fellow-
citizen, Diodorus, with the means of attacking the other two,
who were partners in iniquity." About three or four days
before the trial of Aphobus came on,’ Midias and his brother,
Thrasylochus, had rushed into the house of Demosthenes, and
making him an offer to exchange properties, or to undertake
the trierarchy,* proceeded to deal with his effects as if they were
already transferred to themselves; and even gave Aphobus a
release from the action against him.’ Besides all this, they
insulted in the grossest manner the female members of his
family. Having relieved himself from this manceuvre by a
payment of twenty mine for a deputy trierarch, Demosthenes
brought an action for insulting language against Midias, and
obtained judgment by default. Although entitled to execution,
he abstained from touching the effects of the powerful culprit,
and brought an action of ejectment,’ which he was prevented
from trying by the evasions of the defendant. At last, the
“rostility of Midias assumed the form of a public outrage. He
assaulted Demosthenes in the almost sacred character of
Choragus at the Dionysia; and in accordance with the rule in

1 With the selfish inconsistency of Greek party-men, Midias, on one occasion,
stood in opposition to Androtion ; Dem. ὃ. Androt. p. 596, 9.

2 Dem. in Mid. p. 539, 26. 8 ἀντιδιδόντες τριηράρχίαν.

4 τὰς δίκας ὡς αὐτῶν οὔσας ἠφίέσαν Τοῖς ἐπιτρόποις.

5 In Mid. p. 540, 5.

6 Ibid. 540, 21: δίκην δὲ Τούτων λαχὼν ὕστερον τῆς κακηγορίας εἷλον éphpiny* ob
γὰρ ἀπήντα.

71.23: λαβὼν δ᾽ ὑπερήμέρον καὶ ἔχων οὐδενὸς ἡψάμην πώποτε τῶν Τούτου ἀλλὰ
λαχὼν ἐξούλης πάλιν οὐδέπω καὶ τήμερον εἰσελθεῖν δεδύνημαι.

ΒΝ ΝΑ... κει. .«.......ἡ

HIS LIFE. 319

such cases, the matter was brought before the popular assembly,'
and on a show of hands the offender was ordered to be prose-
euted.2 The speech which Demosthenes composed for the
occasion is extant, but was never delivered, as Midias com-
pounded the charge by a payment of half a talent.* The
charges against Androtion and Timocrates were also stimulated
by their ill-usage of the accuser Diodorus, but the grounds
alleged are entirely of a public nature. About the same time,
Demosthenes appeared as the advocate of Ctesippus, the son of
Chabrias, to prosecute Leptines, who had in 356 B.c. passed a
statute for the abolition of hereditary exemptions from the
public burdens, Chabrias having been one of those to whose
family this privilege had been granted. And in 352 B.c., he
composed a most elaborate speech for Euthycles, who indicted
Aristocrates for moving a decree in favour of the adventurer,
Charidemus, which contained a clause making his person in-
violable. He also composed at this time a great many orations
for suitors in private causes. His most important efforts,
however, were the series of public speeches referring to the
proceedings of Philip of Macedon, and known to the ancients
as the twelve Philippics, a name which has become a general
designation for spirited invectives.‘ These speeches extended
over the period from 352 to 339 B.c. But he was not merely
a statesman—that is, in the Athenian sense of the term, an
influential speaker in the senate and in the public assembly.
He was also an active diplomatist, and when not thwarted by the

1 Dem. Mid. 514, 6: προὐβαλόμην αὐτὸν ἀδικεῖν. The προβολὴ or ‘ plaint to
the assembly,’ as Mr. Kennedy renders it (Dem. against Leptines, Midias, &c.,
p- 365), ‘was an application to the people for leave to prefer a criminal charge ;’
_see Meier and Schémann, Alt. Proz. p. 271.

2 70. p. 515, 2: μιᾷ γνώμῃ κατεχειροτόνησεν αὐτοῦ.

3. Aischines says distinctly (c. Ctesiph. 61, 64), that Demosthenes ἀπέδοτο τριά-
κοντα μνῶν ἅμα τήν τε els αὑτὸν ὕβριν καὶ τὴν τοῦ δήμου καταχειροτονίαν ἣν ἐν Διο-
νύσου κατεχειροτόνησε Μειδίου. Plutarch, who recognizes the fact, attributes it to
a belief, on the part of Demosthenes, that he could not cope with the influence of
Midias (Vit. Dem. c. 12). Mr. Grote suggests that ‘he may have delivered tie
discourse and obtained judgment in his favour ; and then afterwards—when the
second vote of the dicasts was about to come on for estimation of the penalty—
may have accepted the offer of the defendant to pay a moderate fine, in fear of
exasperating too far the powerful friends around Midias’ (Hist. of Greece, XI.
Ρ. 479). 4 See e.g. Juvenal, X. 129.

320 DEMOSTHENES.

misconduct of indolent or corrupt colleagues, he performed the
most important services to his country in this capacity. He was
one of the ten ambassadors who were sent to Philip at the end of
347 B.c. His colleague, Aischines, whose words we are obliged
to receive with the greatest caution, tells us' that on this
occasion, when he appeared for the first time in the presence
of the king of Macedon, whose designs he had so often de-
nounced at home, his presence of mind entirely failed him ; and
that, in spite of some good-natured encouragement from Philip,’
who was no doubt curious to hear the most renowned speaker
of the anti-Macedonian party, he was unable to deliver more
than a few confused and incoherent sentences. It is not
impossible that this story rests on a foundation of facts, dis-
torted, of course, by the malignity of a rival politician. Either,
as Mr. Grote suggests,* Demosthenes was really intimidated by
his new and formidable audience, or his common sense assured
him that this was not an occasion on which fine speaking could
produce any practical results, and so he contented himself with
a very brief address. When it was agreed that peace should
be made with Philip, Demosthenes was again one of the ten
ambassadors sent to take the oaths from him.‘ The majority
of his colleagues, probably bribed with Macedonian gold, de-
layed their journey, so as to enable Philip to complete his
Thracian conquests, and even to prepare for the immediate
invasion of Phocis. The ruin of their unfortunate neighbours
opened the eyes of the Athenians to the treacherous counsels
by which they had been misled. Philocrates, the proposer of
the peace, was impeached by Hypereides, and fled from Athens?

1 Fals. Leg. p. 32.

2 Tbid.1. 44: ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος ws διέκειτο θαῤῥεῖν τε παρεκελεύετο Kal μὴ νομί-
few, ὥσπερ ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις, διὰ τοῦτο οἴεσθαί τι πεπονθέναι, κ.τ.λ.

3 XI. p. 530. He inclines to believe ‘that Demosthenes was partially divested
of his oratorical powers, by finding himself speaking not only before the enemy
whom he had so bitterly denounced, but surrounded by all the evidences of Mace-
donian power, and doubtless exposed to unequivocal marks of well-earned hatred,
from those Macedonians who took less pains than Philip to disguise their real
feelings.’

4 See Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, V. pp. 356 foll.), and Grote (XI. pp. 556 foll.),
whose accounts of all these proceedings are accompanied by a criticism of the con-
tradictory explanations, given by Demosthenes and Aischines.

5 Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 376; Hypereides, Pro Euxenippo, col. 39, 1: 7 [01].
d. Babington. .

HIS LIFE. 321

The accusation Alschines, which Demosthenes and Timarchus
had undertaken, was delayed by the successful attack made by
Aaschines on the latter,’ and by his procrastination in sub-
mitting to the usual scrutiny.2, It came on, however, in B.c.
343, and the two great speeches of the rival orators are still
extant. Aischines, with the help of Eubulus and Phocion, was
acquitted by a majority of 30 votes.’ This partial check did
not interfere with the growing influence of Demosthenes. He
was the life and soul of all the opposition which Athens raised
to the restless intrigues and attempts of Philip. It was by his
counsels that embassies, in which he took a part, were sent to
the Peloponnesus, to the Ionian Isles, to Illyria, Thessaly, the
Chersonese, and Byzantium.‘ He recommended the expe-
dition to Eubcea, which detached that island from Macedon.’
And when the war was renewed between the Athenians and
Philip, it was he who induced his countrymen to send a fleet to
the relief of Byzantium, in B.c. 340, and thus to bring the
Thracian campaign to a successful issue.® His greatest
triumph was the alliance which he brought about between
Athens and Thebes,’ when the insane proceedings of Aischines*
had stirred up a second sacred war, and introduced Philip into
Beotia. Although the unfortunate issue of the battle of
Cheeroneia in B.c. 338 overthrew the independence of Athens,
the active patriotism of Demosthenes had saved his country
from a greater disaster,’ and he maintained his position in spite
of that event. The death of Philip, in B.c. 336, opened an
avenue for successful exertion, but the Athenians, under the evil
influence of Phocion, took no advantage of it. The destruction of

1 See Thirlwall, VI. pp. 28 foll. The success of Auschines was due to the
notorious profligacy of Timarchus, which enabled him to dispense with witnesses.
On this account Demosthenes says, with express reference to the prosecution of
Timarchus, the only public indictment which had, up to that time, been brought
forward by Aischines: ὃς yap ἀγῶνας καινοὺς ὥσπερ δράματα καὶ τούτους ἀμάρ-
Tupas πρὸς διαμεμετρημένην τὴν ἡμέραν αἱρεῖς διώκων δῆλον ὅτι πάνδεινος εἶ τις (De
Fals. Leg. p. 578).

2 Thirlwall, VI. p. 26. 3 Below, 8 4, p. 336 [176].
4 Grote, XI. pp. 626 sqq. 5 De Corond, p. 252.
6. Ibid. pp. 254, 304-308. 7 Ibid. pp. 286, 7.

8 Asch. ¢. Ctes. pp. 69 foll.
9. 4.6. an invasion of Attica from Elatea in B.c. 339; see Thirlwall, VI. p. 62,
Grote, XI. p. 671.
Vou. IL Y

522 DEMOSTHENES.

Thebes was followed by Alexander’s demand for the extradition
of Demosthenes and the other anti-Macedonian leaders.’
Although Phocion recommended compliance, the Athenians
magnanimously rejected the demand, and Alexander was induced
to modify it. Demosthenes, though no longer a leader, still
retained considerable influence at Athens, which was shown by
the results of his second great contest with Aischines, in B.c.
330. . This arose from the proposal made by Ctesiphon, in B.c.
338, not long after the battle of Chzeroneia, that Demosthenes
should be rewarded with a golden crown and an eulogistic
proclamation at the great Dionysia, specially for his exertions
and expenditure in repairing the city walls, and generally for
his patriotic and able. conduct as a statesman.* This proposal
was indicted by Aischines, as the representative of the Mace-
donian party, nominally on various technical grounds, but
really as an impeachment of the political life of Demosthenes.
The circumstances of the intervening years had prevented the
Macedonizers from bringing on the case; but when the death
of Agis, in 330 B.c., had made their cause stronger than ever,‘
they thought that a favourable opportunity had arrived. for
effecting the ruin or discredit of their chief opponent. The
speech by which Aischines supported his prosecution, and the
triumphant answer of Demosthenes, are still extant, and are
perhaps the best specimens of Greek oratory which we have.
The latter is by universal consent an unequalled effort of
human eloquence. Aischines did not. obtain the fifth part of
the votes, and in bitter mortification withdrew from Athens.’
But this was the last happiness of Demosthenes, so far as we
know his history. For the next five or six years we read
nothing of his proceedings. But in the year 324 B.c., Har-
palus, the satrap of Babylonia, sought an asylum in Attica

1 The persons demanded were, Demosthenes, Lycurgus, Hypereides, Polyeuctus,
Chares, Charidemus, Ephialtes, Diotimus, and Mcerocles (Arrian, Anabd. I. το,
§ 6. Plut. Dem. c. 23, mentions Demon instead of Diotimus,. and Callisthenes
instead of Hypereides).

* He was satisfied with demanding the surrender of Charidemus and Ephialtes,
who fled from Athens and took service with the Persians.

3 In the terms of the proposed decree.

4 Thirlwall, VI. p. 257.

5 See the remarks of Grote on the causes of the exile of A’schines (XII. p. 395).

HIS LIFE. 323

with a considerable treasure, of which the Athenians took
possession in trust for Alexander. On counting over the
money, it was found to be much less than Harpalus said that
he had brought with him, and Demosthenes was charged by
Hypereides with having embezzled, or received as bribes, some
portion of the deficit. Although it seems to us in the highest
degree improbable that there should be any solid foundation
for such a charge, fear of the Macedonians, or some other
political motives, induced the Athenians to find Demosthenes
guilty.’ He was thrown into prison, but allowed to escape to
Aigina and Troezen, where he resided, gazing with tearful
eyes on the coast of Attica,? till the death of Alexander,
and the renewed opposition to Macedon, which led to the
Lamian war, restored him in triumph to his native land. In
the vigorous measures, which had nearly led to the ruin of
Antipater, Demosthenes was the prime mover. But these
bright prospects were soon clouded by the death of the
Athenian general Leosthenes, by the loss of the battle of
Crannon, and by the subsequent disunion of the allied Greeks.
And when Antipater marched into Beotia, in B.c. 322, Athens
was prostrate at his feet. Besides demanding the overthrow of
the democratical constitution, he insisted that the anti-
Macedonian orators should be given up to him. They fled
from Athens, and Demades in their absence induced the gooo
citizens, to whom Antipater had left the right of voting, to
condemn them to death. This sentence was passed against
Demosthenes, Hypereides, Aristonicus, and Himereus, the
brother of Demetrius of Phalerum. One of the officers of
Antipater, Archias, an Italian mercenary of Thurii, ‘ the exile-
hunter ’ as he was called,* tore the last three of them from the
sanctuary of Aiacus,in Aigina, and sent them to Antipater, who

1 Grote has given good reasons for his conclusion, that ‘the verdict against him
was not judicial but political, growing out of the embarrassing necessities of the
time’ (XII. p. 113). Thirlwall comes to the similar result, that ‘ Demosthenes
fell a victim to political intrigues, which derived their chief strength from the
critical position in which Athens was placed by her resistance to Alexander’s
decree for the restoration of the exiles’ (VII. 16r).

2 Plut. Dem. 27: ἤνεγκε δὲ τὴν φυγὴν μαλακῶς ἐν Αὐγίνῃ καὶ Τροιζῆνι καθεζό-
μενος τὰ πολλὰ καὶ πρὸς τὴν ᾿Αττικὴν ἀποβλέπων δεδακρυμένος.

3 Plut. Dem. 28: ᾿Αρχίας ὁ κληθεὶς Φυγαδοθήρας, ὁ. 6., ‘the blood-hound.’ It

Y 2

824 DEMOSTHENES. ‘

put them all to death. With a band of Thracian soldiers,
Archias tracked Demosthenes to his place of refuge, the temple
of Poseidon, in the isle of Calauria, near Troezen, where he had
spent part of his year of exile. Archias, who had been an actor,
and a student of rhetoric, tried to induce Demosthenes to quit
the sanctuary by some promises of mediation couched in high-
flown and theatrical language.’ Demosthenes obliged him to
throw off the mask by an irritating reference to his former
employment as a stage-player, and the agent of Antipater
broke out into undisguised and angry menaces. ‘ Now,’ said
Demosthenes, ‘ you speak the true words of the Macedonian
oracle—before you were but acting.’ He then asked Archias
to wait till he had written home, and withdrawing to the inner
part of the temple, took a dose of poison which he carried
about his person. Having waited till the effects began to be
felt, he rose up and staggered to the door of the temple, where
he fell dead. His last words were : ‘ You may at once, Ὁ Archias,
enact the part of Creon, and cast out this body unburied. O
dear Poseidon, I quit thy temple still alive, but Antipater and
the Macedonians have not allowed even thy sanctuary to be
uncontaminated.’?

Such was the miserable end of this great orator. It was
not very long before the Athenians returned to their appre-
ciation of the man who had served them so well for more than

appears that he had been a pupil of the celebrated actor Polus, and of the rheto-
ricians Lacritus and Anaximenes. It is worth noticing that Lacritus, who had been
a pupil of Isocrates, is severely handled in one of the private orations of Demo-
sthenes, below, § 5.

1 We cannot agree with Mr. Grote (XIT. p. 441) in his rejection of Plutarch’s
account of the death of Demosthenes. It appears to us not only very vivid and
natural in itself, but also not improbable, for Archias would be likely to recollect
and recount incidents in which he imagined that he had played a creditable part :
such a statement as’Apxlov πολλὰ φιλάνθρωπα διαλεχθέντος (Plut. Dem. 29) could
hardly have proceeded from any other informant, and if we compare the moderate
language in which Demosthenes alludes to the histrionic antecedents of this tool of
tyranny with the taunts which he flings out against Alschines, we may almost sup-
pose that Archias softened down some unpleasant things that were said to him.
The reference to Creon is quite in the spirit of Demosthenes: see De Corond,
p- 288, 1. 19; and Archias was literally the representative of a tyrant.

2 Plut. Dem. 29: οὐκ ἂν φθάνοις ἤδη τὸν ἐκ τῆς τραγῳδίας ὑποκρινόμενος Kpéovra
καὶ τὸ σῶμα τοῦτο ῥίπτων ἄταφον. ἐγὼ δ᾽, ὦ φίλε Πόσειδον, ἔτι ζῶν ἐξανίσταμαι τοῦ
ἱεροῦ" τῳ δὲ᾽ Ἀντιπάτρῳ καὶ Μακέδοσιν οὐδ᾽ ὁ σὸς ναὸς καθαρὸς ἀπολέλειπται.

HIS SPEECHES. 325

thirty years. His nephew, Demochares, lived to propose and
carry a decree,’ by which his eldest descendant for the time
being had reserved to him a seat at the public table in the
Prytaneum ; and a statue of bronze was erected in his honour
both in the agora at Athens and in the temple at Calauria, where
he died.?,_ The former bore the plain-spoken inscription :—

Had but thy power, Demosthenes, mated thy prudent mind,
No chains of warlike Macedon would free-born Hellas bind!

His countrymen were pleased to see that a just retribution
punished the immediate authors of his death, Archias died in
poverty, and universally detested. And one of the last acts of
Antipater was to order the execution of the corrupt and
treacherous Demades.’ To these feelings on the part of the
Athenians, when they looked back, a few years afterwards, on
the completed career of Demosthenes, we lend a ready sym-
pathy. It is our present business to regard this great man in
his literary rather than his political capacity, but we cannot
refrain from recording our concurrence in the sentiment so
strongly expressed by Niebuhr, that Demosthenes was politically
a saint, that we do not envy the man who judges him diffe-
rently, and that his whole political life, and all that concerns
his honour as a statesman, are without spot or change.°

§ 2. The sixty-one speeches which have come down to us
under the name of Demosthenes, probably include all that he
left in writing.’ And the collection contains besides many
that he did not compose or deliver. They are generally
divided into three classes—the harangues to the people
(Snunyopiat), the orations on public causes (δημόσιοι λόγοι),

1 Vit. X.-Orat. p. 847 D. 2 Pausanias, IT. 33, § 5.
3 εἴπερ ἴσην ῥώμην γνώμῃ, Δημόσθενες, εἶχες,
οὔποτ᾽ ἂν Ἑλλήνων ἦρξεν "Ἄρης Μακέδων.
Plut. Dem. 30; who speaks of it as τὸ ἐπίγραμμα τὸ θρυλλούμενον.
4 Arrian, ap. Phot. cod. XCII. p. 218: ’Apxlas ὁ Θούριος ἐν ἐσχάτῃ πενίᾳ καὶ
ἀτιμίᾳ διατρίψας ἐτελεύτησε τὸν βίον.
® Diod. XVIII. 48, Arrian, ἃ. 5. Athen. XIII. κοι. Τὸ was Cassander who
executed judgment on Demades according to Plutarch, Dem. 31, Phoc. 30.
§ Philological Museum, I. pp. 487, 497.
7 See Clinton, 27, H. ΤΙ. p. 355. Photius (cod. CCLXV.) says: φέρονται λόγοι
γνήσιοι ἑξήκοντα πέντε, but, as Mr. Clinton remarks, it is not explained what this
list of sixty-five contained, and it might include some spurious pieces.

326 DEMOSTHENES.

and the speeches upon private causes (ἰδιωτικοὶ λόγοι). We
shall consider them according to this division, but we shall
place by themselves the two great speeches which he made
against Aischines, both because the corresponding orations of
the rival orator are still extant, and also because these com-
positions have a distinct historical and oratorical value.

We have fifteen parliamentary speeches or harangues addressed
to the popular assembly, and this is the number recognized
by Dionysius.? Of these, twelve relate more or less directly to
the proceedings of Philip, and, as we have already mentioned,
are called the Philippics. This title, however, is generally
restricted to five of them, the first and fifth being contained in
one. Three others are called the Olynthiacs, and the
remaining four have special designations—‘On the Peace,
‘The Halonnesus,’ and ‘The Chersonesus.? The three other
public speeches are these—‘ On the Symmorie,’ ‘ For the People
of Megalopolis, and ‘ For the Rhodians.’

It has been already stated that the first in point of time of
this collection of parliamentary addresses was the speech
respecting the Symmorie, in B.c. 354. The object of this
speech was to show that, although there was no immediate
occasion for a special confederacy of the Greeks to resist the
king of Persia, it was still necessary that Athens should be
well prepared for any eventuality. With this view he brings
forward an elaborate and well-conceived scheme for the classi-
fication of the 1200 wealthiest citizens in the twenty companies
(συμμορίαι), two for each tribe, which were required, each in
its turn, to advance the special war contribution or property-tax.
(εἰσφορά)."

The next in order was the speech for the people of Megalo-
polis, delivered in B.c. 353. In this oration, as in the preceding,
Macedon and Philip do not enter into the speaker’s thoughts.
The principle which he lays down is, that it is expedient for
Athens that both Sparta and Thebes should be as weak as
possible. And, as Thebes at this time was sufficiently enfeebled

1 They are arranged according to their dates, and in these classes, by Mr.
Clinton, 11. Ρ. 86ο.
39 Ad Ammeum, p. 744, Reiske. 3 See Grote, XI. pp. 398 foll.

THE PHILIPPICS. 327

by her contest with the Phocians, the orator recommends his
countrymen to accept the alliance of Megalopolis, and so to
check the designs of Sparta in the south.’

The first Philippic was spoken in B.c. 352. Here we have
Demosthenes in the character which he sustained to the last—
the sagacious discoverer of the dangerous designs of Philip, the
energetic statesman who roused his indolent countrymen to a true
sense of their perils and their duty. “He boldly throws the blame
on the people no less than their advisers ; and calling upon the
Athenians to serve in person instead of leaving the military
functions of the free citizen to be performed by mercenaries,
he proposes to equip an adequate standing force, and to provide
the means for paying the soldiers and sailors by a financial
scheme which has not come down to us.’

In B.c. 351, he delivered his speech about the freedom of
the Rhodians, urging the Athenians to support the democratical
party in that island, and obviating the fear that either the
queen of Caria, or the Persian king, would espouse the cause of
the ruling oligarchy. The former, he shows, would. probably
abstain from all interference, and the king of Persia was
not by any means so formidable an opponent as Philip of
Macedon, whom some affected to hold cheap.’

The three Olynthiac speeches were delivered in the year 8.0.
349. The chronological order of these vigorous harangues has
been made the subject of learned discussions by able scholars.‘
On the whole, there seems to be good ground for acquiescing
in the conclusion of Stiive and Mr. Grote, that the third
Olynthiae should retain its old place, and that the order of the
first and second should be reversed. According to this view,
the earliest of these speeches considers the affairs of Olynthus
as only one element in the general opposition to the designs of
Philip, and dwells rather on the advantage of an alliance with
that important city than on the risk to which it was exposed,

1 See Grote, XI. pp. 406 foll. 3.74. pp. 431 foll. 3 Thirlwall, V. p. 304.
4 See Mr. Grote’s Appendix to his 88th chapter (vol. XI. pp. 499—504). The
three arrangements are :—
Hdited/order 22.55 Soke so πον, TB, TO:
- Order of Dionysius. . . . IL. Ill. 1.
StueveandGrote . . . . Il. I. ΤΠ.

328 DEMOSTHENES.

and the consequences which the success of Philip in that
quarter would probably entail.’ In the next Olynthiac speech
—that which is first in the ordinary arrangement—Demosthenes
enlarges upon these special considerations. Olynthus is in
danger, and if Philip conquers it, he will soon be able, instead
of fighting the Athenians in the north, to transfer the war to
their own soil. And under the emergency, as he presents it to
them, he recommends an adequate armament, both military and
naval, which must be provided for, if necessary, by even an
appropriation of the public-spectacle money —the theoricon, as
it was called? The Athenians partially acted on this advice,
and their troops gained some trifling success which led them to
indulge in overweening exultation. To repress this feeling and to
point out the real state of the case, Demosthenes delivered the
third Olynthiac oration. And he is so far from encouraging
them in the belief that they had the game in their hands, that
he insists upon the necessity of increased exertions, and goes so
far as to suggest the immediate appointment of a board for a
revision of the laws with a view to the application of the
theoricon to the purposes of the war. This third Olynthiac is
one of the noblest of all the speeches of Demosthenes.

The speech on the Peace, which was delivered in B.c. 346,
after the ruin of Phocis, and the promotion of Philip to the
Amphictyonic dignity, contains ‘a calm and statesmanlike view
of the question, whether Philip’s newly usurped honours
should be recognized. Disapproving of the peace, he did not
think that either the time or the cause warranted an appeal to
arms. It would be foolish, he said, and absolutely monstrous,
when they had so demeaned themselves with the separate states
in regard to their dearest interests for the sake of peace, to
go to war with them all collectively for the sake of a seat in
the shady nook at Delphi.’

In B.c. 344, the second Philippic was spoken. Philip had
sent ambassadors to Athens, probably the mission in which the

1 Grote, XI. p. 457. 2 Olynth. I. p. 15.
3 Grote, XI. p. 468. 4 Olynth. ITI. pp. 31, 32.
5 De Pace, p. 63, 1. 23: οὐκοῦν εὔηθες καὶ κομιδῇ σχέτλιον πρὸς ἑκάστους καθ᾽ ἕνα
οὕτω προσενηνεγμένους περὶ τῶν ἀναγκαίων καὶ ἀναγκαιοτάτων, πρὸς πάντας περὶ τῆς
ἐν Δελφοῖς σκιᾶς νυνὶ πολεμῆσαι.

>

4

THE PHILIPPICS. 329

Byzantine orator Python took a prominent part, and, as Dr.
Thirlwall suggests,’ it ‘seems to have been the speech with
which Demosthenes prefaced a motion for the answer which he
proposed to give to the ambassadors.’ It is directed in great
measure against the Philippizing Orators,? and it warns the
Athenians to be on their guard against the Macedonian king,
and to form alliances against him.

The oration ‘about the Halonnesus,’ which was delivered in
B.C. 343, is wrongly attributed to Demosthenes. There is good
reason for believing that its author was Hegesippus, an orator
of the anti-Macedonian party.2 Demosthenes spoke on the
occasion, but his harangue is lost.‘

The oration on the Affairs of the Chersonesus’ and the third
Philippic were both delivered in B.c. 342, when the peace
between Philip and the Athenians was growing more and more
nominal, and the rupture becoming gradually more inevitable. In
the former, which is a masterpiece of eloquence, the orator depre-
cates the recal of Diopeithes,’ au active leader of mercenaries,
who had engaged in unauthorized hostilities with Philip, and had
levied contributions from his subjects in Thrace, and even appre-
hended an envoy sent to treat with him.’ In both orations he
deals immediately with the affairs of the Chersonesus, and it
has been supposed® that the third Philippic had reference to a
request for protection from the subjects of Athens in that
quarter. The Philippic boldly states that the nominal peace
had been really a state of war, as far as Philip’s actions were

1 Thirlwall, VI. p. το.

3 There is a special allusion to Philocrates in p. 73, 1. 2, for it was this corrupt
orator who reviled Demosthenes as a teetotalist ; see Pals. Leg. p. 355. 1. 25.

3 See Alsch. ο, Ctes. 65, and the arguments of Winiewski and Vémel, cited, the
former at length and the latter briefly, in Dindorf’s Annotationes (Oxford, 1849,
vol. I. pp. 139—142).

4 Libanius, Argum.: ὁ μὲν τοῦ Δημοσθένους λόγος 6 περὶ τῆς ᾿Αλοννήσου ῥηθεὶς οὐ
σώζεται, ἐκείνου δὲ οὐκ ὄντος τὸν εὑρεθέντα προσέθεσαν αὐτῷ.

ὅ There is a spirited translation of this speech in Lord Brougham’s Works, vol.
VII. pp. 73 foll.

_ § Diopeithes has another contact with Greek literature as the father of the poet
Menander.

7 Epist. Philippi, p. 159, 1. 13.

8 By Winiewski (ad Orat. de Corond, p. 176), on the strength of the expression
τἄλλα ὅσα ἀξιοῦσι, Phil. 111. p. 129, 1. 28.

330 DEMOSTHENES.

concerned, and both speeches insist on the necessity of sending
embassies and organizing a confederacy to check the king’s
increasing ambition.

The fourth Philippic is generally regarded’ as a spurious
composition, made up of passages taken from the genuine
orations of Demosthenes... Scholars have come to a similar
conclusion respecting the speech on the Letter of Philip, and
the Funeral Oration. That on the Arrangement of the Republic
(wept συντάξεως) has been pronounced by F. A. Wolf to be a
patchwork made up in great measure of extracts from the third
Olynthiac, and the speech against Aristocrates?

§ 3. A general reference has been already made to the
speeches against Androtion and Leptines, delivered in B.c. 355,
against Timocrates in B.c. 353, against Aristocrates in B.C. 352,
and that prepared for delivery against Midias in B.c. 348.
They are distinguished by the same characteristics—great
knowledge of the laws and history of Athens, acute reasoning,
and powerful declamation. That against Leptines was a
special favourite with the ancient critics. Dionysius says that
of all the speeches of Demosthenes, this oration on the immu-
nities has the greatest polish and literary finish ;* and the
eminent rhetorician, Aristides, has left us a formal imitation
of it. Cicero specially praises it for its subtlety,‘ and the great
modern scholar, F. A. Wolf, assigns it the next place in point
of excellence to the noble speech on the Crown.’ ‘The accuracy
of the language is very remarkable, and we have some examples
of refinements and distinctions, which evince the most laborious
and careful preparation.°

1 See Dindorf, Annot. I. p. 202.

2 Wolf, Proleg. ad Leptineam, p. 74: ‘si quid video, oratio que inscribitur περὶ
συντάξεως seu de Republic& ordinandé, Demosthenis non est, sed ex aliis ejus,
maxime Olynth. III. et Aristocratea, ab aliquo declamatore consutis pannis
confecta.’

3 Ad Ammeuwm, p. 724: ὁ περὶ τῶν ἀτελειῶν λόγος χαριέστατος ἁπάντων τῶν
λόγων καὶ γραφικώτατος.

4 Orator. 31: ‘multe sunt Demosthenis orationes tote subtiles, ut contra
Leptinem: multe tote graves ut quedam Philippice: multe varie, ut contra
Aéschinem false legationis, ut contra eundem pro causs& Ctesiphontis.’

> Prolegomena in Lept. p. 42.

6 As in the refined distinction between ἀφαιρεῖν and ἀφαιρεῖσθαι, p. 462, 1, 3.

SPEECHES AGAINST ANDROTION AND TIMOCRATES. 331

The orations against Androtion, Timocrates, and Aristo-
crates, are marked by a similarity of subject and a resemblance
of style, which sometimes amounts to a repetition of the same
arguments and even the same expressions. This parsimony,
or at least economy of diction, is particularly observable in
the two former speeches, which are written for the same
accuser, and virtually directed against the same offending party.
It is interesting to examine the relations between Demosthenes
and the persons who figure in these two orations. Androtion,
the son of Andron, was an orator of no mean eminence. He
had been a pupil of Isocrates,’ and has received commenda-
tion from Aristotle, who preserves a fragment from one of
his speeches.” At the time when this action was brought
against him, he had been a leading politician for more than
thirty years, and had held many offices of great responsibility.’
But he seems to have been a selfish demagogue, and his
private character was on a par with his political reputation.
It has been supposed, and, as we shall see, not without
reason, that he was the same person as the historian Androtion,
who wrote the Aithis.* He is attacked in the cause, for which
the speech of Demosthenes was written, by Euctemon and
Diodorus, both of whom he had wronged in the most signal
manner, on the ground that he had illegally proposed the usual
honour of a crown to the council of the five hundred, although
they had not performed their prescribed duty of building some
additional triremes. This was in B.c. 355, and we do not
know precisely the result of the action. In B.c. 353, the same
Androtion is the cause of the attack made by Euctemon and
Diodorus against Timocrates. He had been sent as ambas-
sador to Caria, and on the way the trireme in which he sailed
had captured a merchant ship of Naucratis, and brought her
into the Peirzus. The ambassadors had sold and appropriated
the captured goods, which really belonged to the state, and had
been summoned to refund the proceeds. In order to screen
them, Timocrates, a hireling orator, had proposed a law, which

1 Dem. c. Androt. p. 594, 15.

2 Rhet. 111. 4, § 3. He compared his adversary Idrieus to an unchained and
savage dog.

3. Dem. c. Timocr. pp. 734, 5. 4 Below, chapter XLIII. § 6.

oan DEMOSTHENES.

would have relieved Androtion from the usual penalties. And
in arguing against this law, Demosthenes has to take a course
the very opposite to that which was necessary in the attack on
Leptines. It is curious to observe how the personal relations
of these public men varied at different times in their career,
fully justifying the saying of Bias, quoted by Sophocles, that
the harbour of political partizanship was not a safe place of
refuge, and that we must limit our animosity by the thought
that our enemy may one day be our friend.’ In the speech
against Midias, which was delivered in B.c. 348, we find that
Euctemon had become one of the party of that insolent enemy
of Demosthenes. ‘ Now,’ he says,’ ‘ Polyeuctus, Timocrates,
Euctemon, that dirty fellow (ὁ κονιορτός), are the protectors of
Midias. These and others too are his hireling attendants, a
confederate association of witnesses, not indeed troubling you
openly, but without any scruple expressing their assent
to falsehoods. By heaven, I do not believe that they
derive any advantage from him, but they have a surprising
habit of surrendering themselves disgracefully (φθείρεσθαι)
to the rich, and following at their heels, and giving testimony
for them.’ Another Euctemon is mentioned with great com-
mendation in the same speech,’ and has been identified with
the prosecutor of Timocrates and Androtion; but the fact
that Euctemon takes the lead in an attack on such a for-
midable antagonist as the latter, seems to show that he was,
like the other Euctemon, an orator and public man, as in-
deed we know he was; and the friendly relations, which after-
wards subsisted between Polyeuctus and Demosthenes, are at

1 Soph, Ajax, 678:
ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐπίσταμαι yap ἀρτίως ὅτι
ὅ τ᾽ ἐχθρὸς ἡμῖν ἐς τοσόνδ᾽ ἐχθαρτέος
- ws καὶ φιλήσων αὖθις" ἔς τε τὸν φίλον“
τοσαῦθ᾽ ὑπουργῶν ὠφελεῖν βουλήσομαι
ὡς αἰὲν οὐ μενοῦντα᾽ τοῖς πολλοῖσι γὰρ
βροτῶν ἄπιστός ἐσθ᾽ ἑταιρείας λιμήν.
Cf. Dem. 6. Aristocr. p. 660, 24, who expresses this sentiment in his own words,
and see Arist. Rhet. II. 13, § 4; Cic. Lal. c. 16.

2 0. Mid. p. 560,§2. It is the opinion of Ruhnken that the Polyeuctus
here was the same as the orator of Sphettus, but Béhnecke and Dindorf think
this improbable.

3. C. Mid. p. 568, 1. 24.

THE ORATION AGAINST ARISTOCRATES. 333

least as inconsistent with this passage as the association here
of Euctemon and Timocrates.

The elaborate oration against Aristocrates, in B.c. 352, was
composed for one Euthycles, who had served as a trierarch on
the coast of Thrace, and had appeared on former occasions as
an accuser.’ The oration is interesting from the information,
which we derive from it, respecting the laws of Athens and the
affairs of Thrace, and though it generally exhibits an elaboration
of arguments rather than the energy of fervid eloquence, there
are here and there some very striking passages, as, for example,
that in which he compares the selfishness of the contemporary
statesmen with the patriotism of such citizens as Miltiades,
Themistocles, and Aristides. ‘In those days,’ he says,’ ‘the
people was the master, now it is the ministering slave of the
public men. They, who propose such decrees—who accustom
you to think lightly of yourselves, and to hold in reverence some
one or two individuals,—are to blame for all this. They it is
who have stepped into the inheritance of your glory and your
possessions, whereas you have not the least advantage from them,
but witness the prosperity of others ; having no share in anything
—except being cheated. And yet what would be the groaning
of those great men, who died for glory and for freedom, and
left behind the records of many noble deeds, if by any possi-
bility they could be aware that the city has now degraded itself
to the form and office of a dependent, and is actually debating
whether it is right to protect the person of Charidemus. Of |
Charidemus! out upon him "ἢ

The investigations of modern scholars have confirmed the
opinions of the old critics, that the orations against Theocrines‘
and Neera, and the two speeches against Aristogeiton, are not
the genuine works of Demosthenes. The first of these, which

1 ©. Aristocr. p. 622, 1. 27. 2 Ibid. p. 690, 1. το.

3 The conclusion deserves to be quoted in the original: καίτοι πηλίκον τί ποτ
ἂν στενάξειαν οἱ ἄνδρες ἐκεῖνοι, οἱ ὑπὲρ δόξης Kal ἐλευθερίας τελευτήσαντες Kal πολλῶν
καὶ καλῶν ἔργων ὑπομνήματα καταλιπόντες εἰ ἄρα αἴσθοιντο ὅτι νῦν ἡ πόλις εἰς
ὑπηρέτου σχῆμα καὶ τάξιν προελήλυθε, καὶ Χαρίδημον εἰ χρὴ φρουρεῖν βουλεύεται ;
Kaplinuor ; οἴμοι (6. Aristocr. p. 690, 1. 17). For the force of οἴμοι, see Soph,
Antig. 86. Aristoph. Aves, 145.

4 The Theocrines, in this case, was perhaps the loud-voiced and histrionic
speaker mentioned in the Qrat. de Coron. p. 329, 26,

834 DEMOSTHENES.

was delivered in B.c. 333, is an ἔνδειξις brought by one
Epichares, and is distinctly attributed to Deimarchus by
Dionysius of Halicarnassus." The second was probably classed
with the works of Demosthenes, because it was drawn up for
Apollodorus, the son of Pasion, for whom Demosthenes com-
posed so many forensic addresses. It is referred to the year
B.C. 340. Its genuineness is doubted by Phrynichus,’ Photius,’
and Athenzeus,‘ chiefly on account of its style. The majority
of modern critics have agreed in discarding it. The two
speeches against <Aristogeiton are rhetorical exercitations by
later sophists analogous to that which Aristides composed on
the same subject as the Leptinean oration.’ It is a fact that
Demosthenes took a part, apparently a secondary part, with
Lycurgus, in the prosecution of Aristogeiton in B.c. 331 ;° and
we have still the speech in which the same individual was
attacked by Deinarchus in B.c. 324. And this was a sufficient
reason for the selection of this cause for an exercise by some
rhetorician. But it is probable that Demosthenes, who followed
Lycurgus, had not much occasion to make an elaborate speech,
and that he did not think it worth while to publish what he
had spoken.

§ 4. The two great speeches against Alschines, the un-
successful attack in the speech on the Embassy in B.c. 343, and
the triumphant defence in the speech on the Crown in B.c. 330,
are the most elaborate and important of all the orations of
Demosthenes; and in studying them we have the peculiar
advantage of possessing the corresponding addresses of the rival
orator,

Both in literary merit and in real power, the speech on the
Embassy appears to us conspicuously inferior to that on the
Crown. In the former, Demosthenes seems to feel throughout
an imperfect confidence in the goodness of. his cause. That

1 De Dinarcho, p. 652; Reiske. Cf, Harpocration, s.vv. ἀγραφίου and Θεοκρίνης.

2 p. 225, Lobeck: διά re τὰ ἄλλα ὑπωπτεύθη μὴ εἶναι Δημοσθένους καὶ διὰ τὰ
τοιαῦτα τῶν ἀδοκίμων ὀνομάτων.

8 Cod. ΟΟἸΧΥ, 4 XIII. p. 573 B.: εἰ γνήσιος.

5 See Westermann, Quest. Demosthen. pars 111,, reprinted in Dindorf’s Anno-
tationes, II. pp. 1012-1020.

6 Liban. Argum. p. 769, Phot. Cod. CCLXV.

THE SPEECH ON THE EMBASSY. 335

Philocrates had been guilty of corruption and treason might be
regarded as an established fact. But the anti-Macedonian
party had no sufficient evidence to bring home the same charge
to Aischines. There can be little doubt that Aischines, like
Phocion and Eubulus, was influenced at first by the general
tendencies of the Athenian people, and by a wish to make
political capital in following the stream of public opinion,
rather than by any corrupt motives; though in all probability
these were superadded when A%schines came under the imme-
diate pressure of Macedonian seductions. Demosthenes, too,
may have felt that he had been too ready himself to accept the
peace, and that he had not spoken out on some points so plainly
as he ought to have done.’ Perhaps, too, the ruin of Timarchus,?
who had been originally associated with him in the prosecution,
may have damped his ardour, or at least that of his supporters.
Be this as it may, there is certainly a want of cogency in many
parts of this speech; it is comparatively lax in its order and
arrangement; there are repetitions, as though the author
thought that a re-assertion was equivalent to an additional
argument; and in some parts the evidence seems to have
broken down altogether.’ Nevertheless, its general tendency
is to explain and justify the policy which Demosthenes con-
sistently adopted; and when the orator speaks more of the
general corruption of the age than of the particular faults of
Aaschines, his eloquence is irresistible. Nothing, for example,
could be finer, than the passage in which he describes the
morbid state of political morals in Greece :* ‘ A disease, men of
Athens, a dreadful and violent disease, has fallen on Greece—
one that exacts on your part extraordinary good fortune and

1 See the criticisms of Grote, XI. pp. 553 foll.

2 De Pals. Legat. p. 341: τὸν μὲν ἀνήρηκε τῶν ἐπὶ ras εὐθύνας ἐλθόντων. That
this means the disfranchisement and not the death of Timarchus is clear from the
glosses in Bekker’s Anecdota, pp. 27, 16, 402, 23, and the passages quoted by Mr.
Shilleto, Pals. Leg. p. 432 ; Mid. p. 548. ‘According to one account,’ says Dr.
Thirlwall (VI. p. 29), ‘he put an end to his life—a sign of greater sensibility than
might have been expected from so profligate a man.’ This other account is given
in the Vite X. Oratorum, p. 841 A.

3 As in the story of the Olynthian woman. Cf. Dem. Fals. Leg. p. 402, with
Ausch. Fals. Leg. sub initio, and pp. 48, 49.

4 Fals. Leg. p. 424.

336 DEMOSTHENES.

unusual care. For the men of most consideration in the par-
ticular cities, and those who are entrusted with the manage-
ment of affairs, betraying their own freedom, the unfortunate
men! are bringing on themselves a voluntary servitude, calling
it by the flattering names of correspondence, association, inti-
macy with Philip, and the like;’ while the rest, and whatever
are the governing bodies in the several cities, whose duty it is
to punish these men, and put them to death on the spot, are
so far from doing any such thing that they admire and envy
them, and would willingly act in the same way, every one for
himself.” The story, too, about the Olynthian woman, though
unsupported or rather contradicted by evidence, is a masterpiece
of criminatory narrative. And the speech, as a whole, must
have produced a great effect. For though Aischines made an
admirable defence, and was supported by men of great influence,
though the allegations of Demosthenes were often false or
inaccurate, and though he laboured throughout under the dis-
advantage of bringing an invidious charge against a colleague
with whom he had acted with general harmony and agreement,
aschines did not obtain a triumphant acquittal, but could only
command a majority of thirty votes,’ which in so numerous a
jury was quite inconsiderable; and we do not find that he
afterwards regarded his victory with much satisfaction.

To the universal admiration with which the oration on the
Crown has been regarded we have no qualifications to make.
As an effort of oratory it is unsurpassed by any composition in
ancient or modern times; and it has been justly remarked that
it ‘has an historical value as a funeral oration of extinct
Athenian and Grecian freedom.* The grounds, on which
/Eschines impeached Ctesiphon’s proposal to crown and eulogize
Demosthenes, not only justified but exacted from the latter a
complete review of his whole political career. The accuser
maintained that Ctesiphon had broken the Athenian laws in
three points: (1) because it was unlawful to crown a public
functionary before he had rendered an account of his conduct ;

1 Φιλίππου ἕενίαν καὶ ἑταιρίαν καὶ φιλίαν καὶ τοιαῦθ᾽ ὑποκοριζόμενοι.

2 Plutarch, Dem. 15, on the authority of Idomeneus οὗ Lampsacus, who was
nearly a contemporary of Demosthenes.

3 Grote, History of Greece, XII. p. 393.

: a

THE SPEECH ON THE CROWN. 857

(2) because it was unlawful to proclaim the distinction at the
Dionysian festival, the proper place being the Council-hall, if
the Council awarded the crown, and the Pnyx, if the assembly
decreed it; (3) because it was unlawful to state a falsehood in
a public document, and it was false that Demosthenes had
deserved any reward, as was stated in the decree, Both the
speech of Alschines and the reply of Demosthenes discuss the
legal arguments with comparative brevity, and direct all their
efforts to the establishment or refutation of the statement that
Demosthenes had deserved a public recognition of his virtue
and patriotism.’ In the oration for the defence, which is now
before us, it is the main object of the speaker to show that the
policy, which he had consistently pursued, had been designed
and calculated to strengthen Athens, and to defeat the machi-
nations of foreign enemies, especially Philip of Macedon; and
acknowledging that he had failed, he shows that his failure had ᾿
not been occasioned by any lack of exertions on his part, and
that his fellow-citizens had, in the midst of their disasters,
gained more glory than they would have obtained by the
highest success, if they had followed the converse policy. That
the Athenians felt this is proved by the result of the trial—a
result not less honourable to the judges than to Demosthenes
himself. For in spite of the bitter memories of Cheroneia, the
near approach of danger after the downfal of the Thebans, and
the subsequent growth of Alexander’s power, the men of Athens
had the magnanimity to re-affirm their approbation of the anti-
Macedonian policy, by such a complete acquittal of Ctesiphon
as amounted to a direct censure of his prosecutor. Aischines
did not obtain the fifth part of the votes, and feeling that his
influence at Athens was at an end, at least so long as the
commonwealth retained its freedom of deliberation, he retired
from the scene of his discomfiture, and went over to Asia in
the hope of obtaining fresh countenance and support from
Alexander—a hope which the king’s death soon dissipated ; and
he passed the remainder of his life as a teacher of rhetoric at
Rhodes.

1 This issue is fairly challenged in the words of the decree (Argum. p. 223):
ἐπειδὴ διατελεῖ Δημοσθένης ὁ Δημοσθένους map’ ὅλον τὸν βίον εὔνοιαν εἰς τὴν πόλιν
ἐπιδεικνύμενος. ᾿

Vou. II. Z

338 DEMOSTHENES.

Our limits do not allow us to attempt any lengthened analysis
of this great oration, or to exhibit its peculiar beauties by
adequate specimens. It must be read as a whole by those who
would thoroughly appreciate it. Still, it is impossible to
mention it without referrmg to some of the brilliant passages,
which are cited invariably as the best illustration of the orator’s
peculiar genius. Nothing, for example, can surpass the passage
in which he maintains the wisdom of facing death in the
unselfish pursuit of glory.’ ‘ Death is to all men the end
of life, even though one should keep oneself shut up in a cage;
but it is the duty of good men to aim at all that is noble,
holding ever before their eyes a hope for the best, ‘and en-
during in a manly spirit whatever the Deity may impose.’
In a similar strain we have the celebrated passage in which he
assures the Athenians that his policy was in accordance with
their own true instincts, and that it would be an imsult to
them to say that he instructed them in sentiments worthy of
their ancestors; but that if they convicted Ctesiphon they
would convict themselves, not their ‘adviser, of an erroneous
policy. ‘ But it is impossible,’ he cries, ‘it is impossible that
you have erred, men of Athens, in taking on yourselves the
risk for the freedom and ‘safety of all Greece! No! I swear
it, by those of your ancestors who placed themselves in danger’s
van at Marathon, by those who joined the line of battle at
Plateea, by those who fought in the ships at Salamis and
Artemisium, and many other brave men who are laid to rest
in the public monuments, all of whom alike the city interred,
thinking them all worthy of the same honour, Aischines, and
not merely those among them who had succeeded and were
victorious. Justly! for that which was the duty of brave men
was done by all of them, and the fortune which they expe-
rienced was that which the Deity assigned to each of them,’
Other passages of the most fervid eloquence, which ‘are gene-
rally cited from this speech, are the description of the excite-
ment at Athens, when the news came that Philip had occupied

1 De Corona, p. 258: πέρας yap ἅπασιν ἀνθρώποις ἐστὶ τοῦ βίου θάνατος κἂν ἐν
οἰκίσκῳ τις αὑτὸν καθείρξας τηρῇ᾽ δεῖ δὲ τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας ἐγχειρεῖν μὲν ἅπασιν ἀεὶ
τοῖς καλοῖς τὴν ἀγαθὴν προβαλλομένους ἐλπίδα, φέρειν δὲ ὅτι ἂν ὁ θεὸς διδῷ γενναίως,

2 De Corond, p. 297.

THE SPEECH ON THE CROWN. 839

Elatea,' that in which Demosthenes maintains that he has fortified
Athens, not with material walls only, but with armaments and
fleets,’ that in which he asserts the high principles by which his
public life had been actuated,* and that in which he contrasts the
motives by which the Athenians were bound to be influenced
with those of the semi-barbarous Philip, who was willing to
sacrifice any part of his body which fortune chose to take from
him, provided he might live in honour and glory with what
remained.‘ Nor is the oration remarkable only for passages of
an elevated character. Its sarcasm and invective are un-
equalled. His elaborate comparison of his own respectability with
the humble early life of his rival,’ and his attack on the father
of Aischines as not only a slave, but a runaway slave, on his
mother as not only a harlot, but a shameless one’—whatever
we may think of their taste or even of their strict veracity—
are unsurpassed as efforts of withering scorn and overwhelming
contumely. ‘The speech, too, abounds in those figures of diction
which by their pungency leave the sting in the memory, as when
he speaks of ‘ the crop of traitors, and bought statesmen, and
heaven-hated wretches,” who had sprung up as the aiders and
abettors of Philip ; or where he says,° that ‘ whenever anything
untoward happens, Aischines is sure to come forth, just as
fractures and sprains are most felt when the body is attacked
by some disease.’

Great as are the literary merits of the oration on the Crown,
they were very much enhanced by the splendid action with
which it was delivered ; and a story is told that, when Aischines
read the speech to his hearers at Rhodes, and when some of
them loudly expressed their admiration, the defeated accuser
could not refrain from exclaiming, ‘what would you say if you
had heard the villain himself speak it ?”°

1 De Oorond, p. 284. 2 Ibid. p. 325. 1. 22.

8 Tbid. 1. 4. 4 Ibid. p. 247.

5 Ibid. p. 315. Of. Milton, Smectymnuus, p. 80 (prose works, in.one volume).

6 p. 270.

7 p. 245. 1. 16: φορὰ προδοτῶν καὶ δωροδόκων καὶ θεοῖς ἐχθρῶν ἀνθρώπων.

8 p. 294. lar.

9 Cic. de Orat. III. 56. Quintil. XI. 3, § 6. Philostrat. Vit. Sophist. I. το.
5. Vit. X. Orat. Photius. Ood. CCLXIV. Valer. Max. VIII..10. p. 840 D.
Plin. H. N. VIII. 30. Plin. Epist, ΤΙ. 3. το.

Z2

340 DEMOSTHENES.

§ 5. Of the thirty-one private orations of Demosthenes
which have come down to us, only four are regarded with any
doubt by the ancient grammarians—that against Euergus and
Mnesibulus, which is questioned by Harpocration ;' that against
Phenippus concerning the Exchange, which the author of the
argument tells us was by some not referred to the great orator 7
that in answer to the Demurrer of Lacritus, which the author
of the argument tells us was regarded by some as not genuine,
but on very feeble arguments ;* and that against Nicostratus,
which Harpocration seems to doubt. But the evidence in
favour of the authenticity of the last two of these speeches
outweighs that in the contrary scale. Of the remaining
twenty-seven, five are the speeches against his guardians
(ἐπιτροπικοὶ λόγοι), to which we have made reference already,
and no less than eight had reference to the litigations in which
Apollodorus was engaged. All these private speeches have a
general interest for the scholar, not only as furnishing specimens
of the legal knowledge and argumentative ability of the writer,
but also as contributing in no small degree to our knowledge
of the public and private economy of Athens. The speeches
composed for Apollodorus demand a special notice, on account
of some critical questions which affect not merely the chrono-
logical arrangement of these orations, but also in some measure
the moral character of Demosthenes himself.

Apollodorus was the son of Pasion, an eminent banker at
Athens, who died in B.c. 370,° leaving two sons by his wife
Archippe, namely, Apollodorus, who was then twenty-four, and
Pasicles who was a minor. He consigned his wife and the
guardianship of Pasicles to Phormio, his freedman, who had

1 s.vv. ἐκαλίστρουν, ἠτημένην. He says he feels disposed to assign it to
Deinarchus. ,

2 p. 1037. 21: ὃ μὲν λόγος οὐκ ἀναφέρεται παρά τινων els τὸν Δημοσθένην.

3 p. 923.1. 10: οὐκ ὀρθῶς δέ τινες ἐνόμισαν τὸν λόγον μὴ γνήσιον εἶναι ἀμυδροῖς
ἀπατηθέντες τεκμηρίοις.

4 s.v. ἀπογραφή: ἐν τῷ Δημοσθένους πρὸς Νικόστρατον περὶ τῶν ᾿Αρεθουσίου
ἀνδραπόδων, εἰ γνήσιος.

5 The relations between Apollodorus and Demosthenes are discussed by Beels in
his Diatribe in Demosthenis Orationes, I. et II. in Stephanuwm, Lugd. Bat. 1825, —
from which there are some extracts in Dindorf’s Annotationes, ITI. pp. 1226—1233.

6 Dem. in Steph. II. p. 1132. 1. 25. x

HIS PRIVATE ORATIONS. 341

hired the management of his bank. Apollodorus was at that
time absent from Athens, as the commander of a trireme, and
being dissatisfied with his mother’s marriage, he commenced an
action against Phormio, which was dropped partly on her
intercession.’ For the rest of his mother’s life he remained on
good terms with Phormio. Archippe died in B.c. 360,” imme-
diately after the return of Apollodorus from the protracted
trierarchy which led to his action against Polycles, and to
the speech which Demosthenes composed for that prosecution.
The death of his mother brought Apollodorus into other dis-
putes with Phormio, which were compromised by a payment
from Phormio of 5000 drachme, and the parties were reconciled.®
Notwithstanding this, in the year B.c. 350, Apollodorus brought
an action for twenty talents, the capital (ἀφορμή) of the bank,
against Phormio,* who entered a demurrer (zapaypagn), and
by this means was enabled to take the initiative in the suit,
and, by establishing the fact of the compromise, to nonsuit the
plaintiff Apollodorus.’ Here we find Demosthenes opposed to
his old client, and the speech for Phormio was that which gave
success to the demurrer or cross-action. The litigious son of
Pasion was not satisfied with this decision, and brought an action
for perjury against one of the witnesses, Stephanus, in support of
which Demosthenes composed the two extant orations against
Stephanus ; and we find that Demosthenes was engaged for
Apollodorus when he wrote the speech against Nicostratus,
about the same time as the prosecution of Midias in B.c. 348.°
Now it was im reference to this acceptance of a brief for
Phormio, probably the only occasion on which Demosthenes
wrote a speech against Apollodorus, that Aischines, in his
speech on the Embassy, in 8.c. 343, taunts him with treachery

1 in Steph. I. p. 1102, II. p. 1135. 2 adv. Polyclem. p. 4225.

3 Pro Phormione, pp. 948 sqq.

* Ibid. pp.-945, 949.

5 Beels’ erroneously supposes that Demosthenes wrote a speech πρὸς. Φορμίωνα
for Apollodorus, as well as the speech ὑπὲρ Φορμίωνος, which is found.among his
works. But this rests on a misunderstanding of the words of Plutarch, who, in
speaking of the τοὺς πρὸς Φορμίωνα καὶ Στέφανον λόγους, merely means the two
speeches against Stephanus, which were virtually against Phormio; see Dindorf.
Annot, III, p. 1230.

§ Dindorf, ad Dem. Nicostr. Ὁ. 1247, 6.

842 DEMOSTHENES.

not to Apollodorus, but to Phormio,’ and both Aischines and
Deinarchus’ insinuate that the opulence of Phormio enabled
him to purchase the services of the venal orator. It appears to
us most probable that at the time of the final quarrel between
Apollodorus and Phormio, Demosthenes was equally intimate
with both parties, but was shortly after led to associate him-
self more closely with Apollodorus, by their common opposition
to Eubulus, the supporter of Midias and the patron of
fischines. It must not be forgotten that it was about this
time that Apollodorus made the patriotic motion about the
Theoric fund, in opposition to Eubulus, and in accordance with
the opinion of Demosthenes, and that he was prosecuted for it
in a most vindictive manner by a man named Stephanus,’
perhaps the very Stephanus against whom Demosthenes wrote
the speech. This union in public matters would be quite
sufficient to account for the conduct of Demosthenes, and for
the mode in which Aischines alludes to it. At any rate, there
is not the slightest ground for the opinion which has been
derived from Plutarch,’ that Demosthenes wrote speeches both
for Phormio and for Apollodorus in one and the same
cause.

§ 6. The style and characteristics of Demosthenes have fur-
nished the ancient critic Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, with the
materials for a special treatise ; and a great modern orator, Lord
Brougham, has made this master of ancient eloquence the theme
of more than one glowing tribute of praise. As Thucydides
was the historian, and Homer ¢he poet of the old grammarians, in
a special and emphatic sense, so Demosthenes was their orator,
par excellence. Hermogenes places him at the head of all

1 Asch. Fals. Legat. p. 50, 1. 23: Gpd γε οὐχ ὡς σὺ τοῖς ἐντυγχάνουσι καὶ
πιστεύσασι κέχρησαι, λόγους els δικαστήρια γράφοντα μισθοῦ τούτους ἐκφέρειν τοῖς
ἀντιδίκοις ; ἔγραψας λόγον Φορμίωνι τῷ τραπεζίτῃ χρήματα λαβών. τοῦτον ἐξήνεγκαΞ
᾿Απολλοδώρῳ τῷ περὶ τοῦ σώματος κρίνοντι Φορμίωνα. Of. im Nicostr. p. 1251, 1.

2 In Demosth. p. 104, 1. 19. 3 Grote, XI. p. 485.

4 Plutarch, Dem. 15 ; see Clinton, F. H. II. p. 358, and note 5 in the preceding
page.

5 Anonym. ad Aphthoniwm, Rhet. Gr. II. p. τό, το, Walz.: κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν εἴρη-
Tat... . ὥσπερ καὶ τὸν Δημοσθένην ῥήτορα λέγομεν. Doxopater, Homil. in
Aphthon. II. p. 515, Walz: συγγραφέα 6’A, τὸν Θουκυδίδην φησὶ κατὰ τὸ ἐξαίρετον,
ὥσπερ καὶ ποιητὴν τὸν Ὅμηρόν φαμεν... .. καὶ ῥήτορα ὁμοίως τὸν Δημοσθένην.

HIS STYLE. 343

political speakers,’ and the same was the opinion of Theon.?
Cicero calls him the prince of orators,’ and declares that nothing
was wanting to his perfection.‘ He was not inferior, says the
Roman master of eloquence, to Lysias in subtilty, to
Hypereides in ingenuity and acuteness, or to Aischines in the
exquisite finish and brilliancy of his style.’

Dionysius, as we have already mentioned,’ places Demo-
sthenes and Plato at the head of the most perfect writers in
that middle or mixed style, which combined the simplicity of
Lysias with the weightier eloquence of Thucydides and Gorgias,
and which Thrasymachus was the first to introduce. That
Demosthenes was a diligent student of Thucydides is sufficiently
attested by the fact, if it is a fact, that he copied out the history
eight times.’ His direct imitation of Thucydides has been
recognized by Dionysius,* who also saw that his enthymemes
or rhetorical arguments were the same as those of the histo-
rian.’ At the same time it is observed that he followed closely
in the steps of Isocrates and Iszeus,”* being especially indebted
to the latter." The extent to which Plato contributed to form
the style of Demosthenes has been differently estimated.
Cicero says, distinctly enough, that Demosthenes was not
merely a diligent reader of Plato, but that he had been one of
his hearers, and that he had admitted this in a letter.” This
is also stated by Plutarch, on the authority of Hermippus, who
adds that Demosthenes was much benefited in his oratorical

1 Hermogenes, περὶ ἰδεῶν, III. p. 366, 18, Walz: ἄριστός τε γὰρ πολιτικῶν
λόγων 6 Δημοσθενικός, ὅ τε αὖ Δημοσθενικὸς λόγος τῶν πολιτικῶν ἄριστος.

3 Theo. προγυμνάσματα, I. p. 200, 6, Walz.

8 Brutus, 37, § 141.

4 Thid. 9, § 33; De Oratore, I. 13, ὃ 58.

5 Orator. 31, ὃ 110: ‘Demosthenes .. . nihil Lysie subtilitate cedit, nihil
argutiis et acumine Hyperidi, nihil levitate Aischini et splendore verborum.’

6 Above, c, XX XIX. § το.

7 Lucian adv. indoctum, p. 102.

8 De Thucyd. judicium, p. 944, Reiske.

9. Ad Pomp. de precip. historicis, p. 777, Reiske.

10 Dionys. Hal. de Demosth. et Aristot. p. 723, Reiske.

11 Dionys. Hal. de Iswo, p. 586, 592, O11.

2 Brutus, 31, § 121: ‘lectitavisse Platonem studiose, audivisse etiam Demo-
sthenes dicitur, idque apparet ex genere et granditate verborum ; dicit etiam in
qu&dam epistol& hoc ipse de sese.’ Cf. De Oratore, I. 20, De Offciis, I. τ,

344 DEMOSTHENES.

style by the lessons which he received from Plato.’ And a
modern Dutch scholar, who is an enthusiastic admirer of the
great philosopher, not only maintains that the style of Demo-
sthenes was framed on the Platonic model, but even discerns in
his speeches some genuine fragments of dialogues and dramatic
scenes in direct imitation of Plato. On the other hand,
Dionysius more than once asserts that the composition (σύνθεσις)
of Demosthenes was decidedly superior to that of Plato,* and
tells us that the orator was not an imitator of any style or
any man, thinking that all his predecessors had only gone
half-way, and were incomplete, but that he selected from all of
them what was best and most useful, and wove it into one
texture, making from them all one new dialect at once rich and
simple, elaborate and ordinary, novel and common, showy and
solid, grave and gay, vehement and tranquil, pleasant and bitter,
moral and impassioned, exhibiting in faet as many changes as
the fabled Proteus.‘ It appears to us that the main characteristic
of the eloquence of Demosthenes—that, in fact, which explains
the wonderful effects produced by it on popular assemblies—is this,
that he used the common language of his age and country, that
he took the greatest pains in choosing and arranging his words,
that he aimed at the utmost conciseness, making epithets, even
common adjectives, do the work of a whole sentence, and that
he was enabled, by a perfect delivery and action, to give the
proper emphasis and the full effect to the terms which he had
selected with so much care, so that a sentence, composed of
ordinary terms, sometimes smote with the weight of a sledge-
hammer. His rival, Aischines, who sometimes admits inci-
dentally this wonderful power of Demosthenes in putting his

1 Plut. Vita Demosth. 5: “Ἕρμιππος δέ φησιν ἀδεσπότοις ὑπομνήμασιν ἐντυχεῖν,
ἐν οἷς ἐγέγραπτο τὸν Δημοσθένη συνεσχολακέναι Πλάτωνι, καὶ πλεῖστον εἰς τοὺς
λόγους ὠφελῆσθαι. :

2 P. W. van Heusde, Initia Philosophie Platonice, vol. II. partI. pp. 151 sqq.
He says: ‘exstant in ejus orationibus colloquia forma et ratione prorsus Platonica,’
and he cites, Cherson., p. 98 D; Philipp. IV. p. 150 A; Phil. I. p. 43 A. Cf.
Phil. TV. 138 B. C.

3 De Compos. verborum, p. 117, Reiske.

4 De admir. vi dicendi in Dem. p. 974; 5, Reiske: μιὰν ἐκ πολλῶν διάλεκτον
ἀπετέλει, μεγαχοπρεπῆ, λιτήν" περιττήν, ἀπέριττον' ἐξηλλαγμένην, συνήθη" πανη-
γυρικήν, ἀληθινήν' αὐστηράν, ἵλαράν' σύντονον, ἀνειμένην" ἡδεῖαν, πικράν' ἠθικήν,
παθητικήν, κιτ.Ὰ.

HIS STYLE. 345

words together,’ in one passage charges him with using the
most uncouth and offensive figures of speech.” He wonders
how the Athenians could tolerate such expressions as ‘ some
people are vinedressing the state,’ ‘some have amputated the
vine-twigs of the people, ‘our affairs have been hamstrung,’
‘ we are being stitched into baskets,’ ‘ some persons are inserting
themselves like needles into the interstices,’ and then exclaims,
‘what are these expressions, you fox? are they words or
wonders?? Dionysius seems to be justified in treating this
statement as a calumny, and says that although Demosthenes
has left 50,000 or 60,000 lines: of his writing, no such expres-
sions are to be found in any of his speeches.* Aischines knew
as well as any one that the strength of Demosthenes did not
consist in tumid extravagances like these. In the last speech
which he heard Demosthenes deliver, Demosthenes inveighed
with deliberate and concentrated virulence against the parents
of his opponent, and contrived to express the most cruel impu-
tations, without using any extravagant compounds. By a
skilful use of the simplest terms, he tells the Athenians that
the father of Aischines was the runaway slave of a poor school-
master in the worst part of the town, and that his mother
combined shameless profligacy with the most abject poverty.’

1 Dionys. Hal. De adm. vi dicendi in Dem. p. 1064.

2 Misch. adv. Ctesiph. p. 77, ὃ 166: οὐ μέμνησθε αὐτοῦ τὰ μιαρὰ καὶ ἀπίθανα
ῥήματα, ἃ πῶς ποθ᾽ ὑμεῖς, ὦ σιδήρεοι, ἐκαρτερεῖτε ἀκροώμενοι ; ὅτ᾽ ἔφη παρελθὼν
* ἀμπελουργοῦσέτινες τὴν πολιν,᾽ ‘ ἀνατέτμηκασί τινες τὰ κλήματα τοῦ δήμου, “" ὑποτέ-
τμηται τὰ νεῦρα τῶν πραγμάτων, "“φορμοῤῥαφούμεθα,᾽ " ἐπὶ τὰ στενά τινες ἑαυτοὺς ὥσπερ
τὰς βελόνας διείρουσι. ταῦτα δὲ τί ἐστι, ὦ κίναδος ; ῥήματα ἢ θαύματα ; We have
here emended πρῶτον in the last phrase attributed to Demosthenes, and have sub-
stituted ἑαυτούς to explain the comparison ; for διείρειν βελονὰς was the regular
phrase, as we see in the passage of Galen quoted by Budeus: διεκβάλλειν καὶ
διείρειν τὴν βελονὴν ἐν τῇ γαστροῤῥαφίᾳ. That φορμοῤῥαφούμεθα ἐπὶ τὰ στενὰ is not
the construction is shown by the citation in Dionysius, p. 1126, who puts καὶ after
the verb.

3 ubi supra p. 1126.

4 De Corond, p.270. The insinuation against the father of Auschines is exagge-
rated by every turn in the expression: ‘he was a slave—in the house of an ele-
mentary schoolmaster—near the Theseum—and wore fetters and a collar!’ So
also of the mother: ‘She lived by her broad daylight espousals—in a temporary
hovel—close by the shop of Hero the quack-doctor!’ The reference to the κλίσιον
reminds one of Lady Wishfort’s vituperation of her maid, whom she found ‘ dining
behind a traverse rag in a shop no bigger than a bird-cage’ (Congreve, Way of the
World, act V. sc. I.).

346 DEMOSTHENES.

And he excuses himself from any further prosecution of the
subject: ‘ Really,’ he says, ‘ Aischines was not even the son of
merely commonplace parents; he springs from those who are
included in the public execrations with which we commence our
meetings.’ In such a passage as this, and there are many like
it, we see that he had carefully considered every word, and that
a good deal of the effect must have been due to the delivery.
The elaborate painstaking which characterizes the composition
of Demosthenes explains the repetitions of striking passages
which we find in his speeches. ‘Practised as he was,’ says
Lord Brougham,’ ‘and able surely, if any man ever was, by
his mastery over language, to pour out his ideas with facility,
he elaborated every passage with almost equal care. Having
the same ideas to express, he did not, like our easy and fluent
moderns, clothe them in different language for the sake of
variety, but reflecting that he had, upon the fullest deliberation,
adopted one form of expression as the best, and because every
other must needs be worse, he used it again without any
change, unless further labour and more trials had enabled him
in any particular to improve the workmanship.’ The same
eminent modern orator has, as it seems to us, most accurately
described the general characteristics of Demosthenes in another
passage of the same essay, where he says,’ that ‘ there is not
any long or close train of reasoning in the orations of Demo-
sthenes, still less any profound observations or remote and
ingenious allusions, but a constant succession of remarks,
bearing immediately on the matter in hand, perfectly plain, and
as readily admitted as easily understood. These are inter-
mingled with the most striking appeals, sometimes to feelings
which all were conscious of, and deeply agitated by, though
ashamed to own; sometimes to sentiments which every man
was panting to utter, and delighted to hear thundered forth—
bursts of oratory, therefore, which either overwhelmed or

1 οὐδὲ yap ὧν ἔτυχεν ἣν ἀλλ᾽ οἷς ὁ δῆμος καταρᾶται, The reference is to the public
prayers and execrations proclaimed by the herald, a sort of bidding-prayer, before
the commencement of business in the Athenian ecclesia,

2 Rhetorical and Literary Dissertations and Addresses, Works, vol. VII. p. 192.

3 Ibid. p. 196.

4

HIS STYLE. §aF

relieved the audience. Such hits,if we may use such a homely
phrase (for more dignified language has no word to express the
thing), are the principal glory of the great combatant; it is
by them that he carries all before him, and to these that he
sacrifices all the paltry graces which are the delight of the
Asian and Italian schools.’

348

CHAPTER XLII.

ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES,

§ 1. The contemporaries of Demosthenes, with the exception of Iseus, may be
classed as patriots and Macedonizers. § 2. Orators of the Alexandrian Canon.
Iseus. ὃ 3. Party of the patriots (a.) Lycurgus. ὃ 4. (b.) Hypereides.
8 5. Macedonian party (a.) Aischines. ὃ 6. (b.) Deinarchus.

§ 1. MONG the orators who are regarded as the contem-

poraries of Demosthenes, we must count Iszeus, from
whom he received instruction and assistance at the beginning
of his career, and Deinarchus and Demochares, whose chief
activity on opposite sides belongs to the period succeeding the
death of the great statesman. In the long interval between
the first and the last of these public speakers—an interval which
extends from the days of Lysias to those of Demetrius
Phalereus—the most prominent subject of discussion was the
opposition between the interests of Macedon and Athens; and
we may therefore divide all the contemporary orators, with the
exception of Iseeus, into two great parties—that of the patriots,
who devoted themselves to the good work of denouncing Philip,
and endeavouring to contravene his machinations, and that of the
Macedonizers, who either corruptly, or from an unwise love of
peace at any price, opposed all warlike and vigorous measures,
and contributed to the downfal of their country’s honour and
independence.

The orators of the patriotic party, besides Demosthenes,
who was the soul of the party, and his nephew Demo-
chares, who maintained or revived it after his death, were
Lycurgus, Hypereides, Polyeuctus,' Hegesippus,? Meerocles,

1 There were two contemporary orators of this name, one of the demus Cydan-
tide, who is known to us particularly in connexion with the newly-discovered frag-

ments of Hypereides, and the other of the demus Sphettus, who is alluded to in the ἡ

text, and whose speech against Demades is quoted by Longinus (EX..p. 544, Walz.).
2 Hegesippus defended Timarchus against Aischines, who nicknamed him xpw-

ISUS. 349

Diophantus,’ Aristophon, and a number of others of less ability
and influence. The orators of the Macedonian party, besides
Aischines, who was their leader, were his original patron
Eubulus, Philocrates, Demades,? and Deinarchus, and a number
of less known demagogues. In selecting some names from this
list for special notice, we may take the criterion of the Alex-
andrian canon of the ten orators, which ranks Iszeus, Lycurgus,
Hypereides, Aischines, and Deinarchus, with Antiphon, Lysias,
Tsocrates, and Demosthenes. We shall thus have to discuss
the teacher of Demosthenes, the two chief orators of his party,
and his two principal antagonists.

§ 2. Very little is known of the biography of Is#us, and we
cannot even fix with accuracy the dates of his birth and death.
All that we know is, that he flourished between the goth and
108th Olympiads, B.c..420—348 : that either he or his father,
Diagoras, was a native of Chalcis, in Eubcea ;* that he came to
Athens at an early age, received instruction from Lysias and
Isocrates,° and gained both reputation and profitable employ-
ment as a teacher of rhetoric, and as a composer of speeches for
the law courts. His chief distinction is the circumstance
referred to in the preceding chapter, that he was the instructor
of Demosthenes, and probably his counsel in the action against
his guardians. Whether he may claim the additional merit of
having trained this great pupil without receiving any remune-
ration, or whether he exacted a very exorbitant fee for his
lessons, is an open question in the ancient authors.°

Iszeus left behind him 64 orations, and of these 50 were

βύλος. The speeches about the Halonnesus, and on. the treaty with Alexander,
which are included in the collection of the orations of Demosthenes, were probably
by him : above, chapter XLI. § 2, p. 329 [169].

1 Diophantus is mentioned by Demosthenes as a very eminent orator (Fals. Leg.
pp- 368, 403, 436; Περί. p. 498).

2 This unprincipled demagogue was a man of brilliant abilities, and generally
spoke extempore. The fragment of the speech, περὶ δωδεκαετίας, which is printed
in the more recent collections of the Attic orators, is considered to be of doubtful
authenticity.

3 Dionys. Hal. de Isceo judicium, p. 586. Plut. p. 839.

4 Harpocration s.v.*Icaios. Suidas 8, nm. Anonym. ap. Reisk. Dionys. p. 586.

* Phot. cod. CCLXITII.

§ Plutarch de glor. Athen. p. 350 c. Phot. uw. s. Plut. p. 839. Cf. 837 D.
Suidas 8. x. : οὗτος ἐπαινεῖται καὶ ὡς ῥήτωρ καὶ ws Δημοσθένην ἀμισθὶ προαγαγών.

850 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

recognized as genuine.’ We have still the titles of 56, in-
cluding the eleven which have come down to 8.5 All these
extant speeches were composed for suits relating to inheritances
(περὶ κλήρου), and they are interesting chiefly as contributions
to our knowledge of the old Attic law on these points. Until
the end of the last century we had only ten of the orations of
Iszeus, and the speech about the inheritance of Cleonymus wanted
more than half. The number of eleven speeches was made up
by the discovery in the Laurentine library of the speech about
the inheritance of Menicles,in 1785,‘ and the Cleonymus was
completed by the publication, in 1815, of the greater part of
this speech, which was found by Mai in the Ambrosian library
at Milan.’ In addition to his speeches, Iseeus wrote a τέχνη,
or methodical treatise on rhetoric, in which he has the credit
of bemg the first to distinguish rightly the different figures,
and to give a political turn to oratory.’

The style and characteristics of Iszeus have been accurately
discussed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in a special tract on
the subject, in which he compares Iszeus with his teacher
Lysias. He says’ that the diction of Iseus is more artificial
and accurate than that of Lysias, the composition is more
elaborate, the figures more varied, and it excels the style of
his master in the power and weight of its phraseology as much
as it falls short in ease and gracefulness. The style of Iszeus
is in fact the fountain of the power of Demosthenes. In the
subject-matter of Iszeus, the eritic finds a great deal of artifice.
Dionysius remarks,’ that ‘he deals unfairly with his adversary,

1 Plut. p. 839.

2 See Westermann, Geschichte der Beredtsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom. p.293,
Leipzig, 1833.

3 With this view they were translated by Sir W. Jones.

4 It was edited by Thomas Tyrwhitt, Lond. 1785.

5 It was published at Milan in 1815.

6 Plut. p. 839 F., quoted by Spengel, συναγωγὴ τεχνῶν, p. 181: καταλέλοιπε...
καὶ ἰδίας τέχνας. “πρῶτος δὲ καὶ σχηματίζειν ἤρξατο καὶ τρέπειν ἐπὶ τὸ πολιτικὸν τὴν
διάνοιαν, ὃ μάλιστα μεμίμηται Δημοσθένης.

7 De Iso judicium, p. 590, Reiske: ἡ δὲ ᾿Ισαίου λέξις τεχνικωτέρα δόξειεν ἂν
εἶναι καὶ ἀκριβεστέρα τῆς Λυσίου, τήν τε σύνθεσιν περιεργοτέρα τις καὶ σχηματι-
σμοῖς διειλημμένη ποικίλοις" ὅσον τε ἀπολείπεται τῆς χάριτος ἐκείνης, τοσοῦτον ὑπερέχει
τῇ δεινότητι THs κατασκευῆς" καὶ πηγή τις ὄντως ἐστὶ τῆς Δημοσθένους δυνάμεως.

8 Tbid.1, 18: πρὸς μὲν τὸν ἀντίδικον διαπονηρεύεται" τοὺς δὲ δικάστας καταστρα-

τηγεῖ.

LYCURGUS. 351

and out-manceuvres the jurymen.? And he informs us,’ that
‘his contemporaries had conceived a suspicion of his cheatery
and imposition, as though he were a man skilful in the artful
perversion of arguments to the worst purposes, and he was
inculpated on this account.’ The sort of deception practised
by Iszeus, as contrasted with the elegant simplicity of Lysias,
is illustrated by a very ingenious analogy. The style of Lysias
is compared to the ancient paintings which have accurate
drawing, but very little shading and colouring, whereas Iszeus
is like the more modern pictures, which are not so well
finished in the outline as their predecessors, but have a greater
mixture of light and shade, and are more highly coloured.
In proof of these discriminations, Dionysius gives us a number
of examples.’

§ 3. Next to Demosthenes, the most honest, consistent, and
efficient of the anti-Macedonian party was Lycureus. He was,
indeed, rather a minister of finance than a parliamentary
speaker ; but, by his incorruptible and scrupulous accuracy in
his administration of the revenues, he gave new life to the
resources of Athens, and rendered possible the execution of
those vigorous measures which were recommended by the
eloquence of his great contemporary. It was he, too, who,
more than any, co-operated with Demosthenes in preventing the
revenues, which were needed for the defence of the country,
from being squandered on the amusement of the people ; and
he, like Demosthenes, stood in constant opposition to reckless —
and profligate demagogues, like their common enemy, Demades.

No one could bring against Lycurgus the reproach so often
flung against Demosthenes, that he was but half Athenian.
His father, Lycophron, belonged to the deme of Butade, and
to the priestly house of the Eteobutade, or genuine stock of

1 De Isceo judicium, p. 591: ἣν περὶ αὐτοῦ δόξα τοῖς τότε γοητείας καὶ ἀπάτης, ὡς
δεινὸς ἀνὴρ τεχνιτεῦσαι λόγους ἐπὶ τὰ πονηρότερα.

2 Tbid..: εὔγραμμοι μὲν ἧττον ἐξειργασμέναι δὲ μᾶλλον σκίᾳ τε καὶ φωτὶ ποικιλλό-
μεναι καὶ ἐν τῷ πλήθει τῶν μιγμάτων τὴν ἰσχὺν ἔχουσαι.

8 It may be worth while ‘to mention that Juvenal’s ‘sermo promptus et Iseo
torrentior’ (ITI. 73, 74) does not refer to our Attic orator, but ἐο ἃ later rhetorician
from Assyria, who-was a contemporary of the Roman satirist. See Philostr. Vit.
Sophist. I. 20; Plin. Epist. II. 3. :

352 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

Butes,' and traced back their descent to the national hero
Erechtheus, probably another form of Poseidon or Neptune, to
whom Lycurgus and his family were devoted as hereditary priests. -
The walls of the Cella in the beautiful Erechtheum, or temple of
Erechtheus-Poseidon, were adorned with pictures of the
_ Butadz who had held the priestly office. Lycurgus left this
priesthood to his son Abron, who resigned it to his brother
Lycophron, and there was a highly finished picture by
Ismenias in the Erechtheum, which represented Abron handing
the trident or symbol of priestly power to his brother. The
conduct of his ancestors was worthy of their origin. One of
them, Lycomedes, had been buried at the public expense, and
the orator’s grandfather, Lycophron, was one of the victims of
the thirty tyrants. The birth-year of Lycurgus is not known.
He was older than Demosthenes,’ and it is inferred that he
was born in the 96th Olympiad, B.c. 396—393. He enjoyed
au education corresponding to his birth and fortune. ‘ Lycurgus,’
says the most eloquent of his panegyrists,‘ ‘ had studied in the
schools both of Plato and Isocrates, but had not learned from
the one to withdraw from active life into a visionary world, nor
from the other to cultivate empty rhetoric at the expense of
truth, and of his country.’ Of the earlier part of his life we
know nothing. There is insufficient evidence for the state-
ment, not improbable in itself, that he was the colleague of
Demosthenes and Polyeuctus in their embassy to the Pelopon-
nesus, Ol. 109, 2, B.c. 3243. As we have already intimated, the
public activity of Lycurgus was chiefly directed to the adminis-
tration of the finances at home. Towards the end of Philip’s

1 Butes, the Argonaut, who succeeded Pandion as priest of Athena and of
Erechtheus Poseidon, is generally distinguished from his Thracian namesake ; but
there are many points of contact between the Erechtheide and the house of
Boreas, and we must not neglect the fact that the name Lycurgus, so common in
the Butade, is that of the step-brother of the Thracian Butes.

2 See F. Thiersch, diber das Erechtheum, Erste Abhandlung, p. 145 (Munich
Transactions, vol. IIT).

3 Liban. Arg. Orat. c. Aristogit. See Clinton, Fasti Hell. II. p. 151.

4 Dr. Thirlwall, who has introduced into his History of Greece (VIII. pp. t40—
148), an admirably written episode on the life of Lycurgus.

5 Plutarch, Vit. Lyc. p. 841 Ἐπ Thisis probably borrowed from Dem. Phil, III.
Ῥ. 129, 19, where the names of Clitomachus and Lycurgus are omitted in the best
MSS.

LYCURGUS. 353

reign, he became ‘treasurer of the public revenue’ (ταμίας τῆς
κοινῆς προσόδου), an office tenable only for a pentaeteris, or
four years,’ but held by Lycurgus, under the names of other
persons, for three successive pentaeterids, or twelve years.’
The period occupied by this financial administration has been
made the subject of discussion among scholars.* If he was
ambassador in B.c. 343, the most probable interval, as he died
before B.c. 326, would be Ol. 109, 3—112, 3, B.C. 341-420.
In this period 1400c, or as some say, 19000 talents passed
through his hands, and he raised the regular revenue of Athens
from 600 to 1200 talents. At the end of each quadriennial period
he gave in an account of his receipts and expenditure, and no flaw
was found in it. Not satisfied with this, he had his accounts en-
graved on stone, and set up the inscription in the Palestra, which
he had recently erected. It seems probable that a fragment of this
inscription is still extant.‘ Just before his death he had himself
carried into the Metroum or Council-chamber, and challenged a
scrutiny of his whole administration ; and when Meneseechmus,
whom he had once prosecuted, attempted to make exceptions, he
at once refuted all his charges.’ Of his measures for nursing the
reyenue we have no account. With regard to the expenditure
which he directed, we learn that, besides building four hundred
triremes, and forming a great magazine of arms, he erected a
theatre, a gymnasium, a palestra, and a stadium. He also, in
imitation of Pericles, filled the store-room in the citadel with a
number of gold and silver ornaments and utensils, which were in
effect a reserved fund for emergencies.

Plutarch enumerates five laws of which Lycurgus was the pro-

1 Bickh, Public Econ. of Athens, ΤΙ. ὃ 6. p. 165, Lewis. .

5 Plut. p. 852 B, quotes a decree in which Lycurgus is described as γενόμενος
τῆς κοινῆς προσόδου ταμίας τῇ πόλει ἐπὶ τρεῖς wevraernplias, Diod. XVI. 88,
Says: δώδεκα ἔτη τὰς προσόδους τῆς πόλεως διοικήσας.

3 See Bickh, Staatshaushaltung, II. p. 245, orig. ed. and the authors cited by
Westermann, Geschichte d. Beredtsamkeit, p. 101, and in Pauly’s Real-Encyclopddie,
vol. IV. p. 1269. See also Dr. Thirlwall’s note, p. 146.

* Bickh, Corpus Inscriptionwm, no. 157. It refers to the years of Ctesicles and
Nicocrates, Ol. 111. 3, 4, B.C. 334, 333, Which fell within the administration of
Lycurgus, and mentions particularly the δερματικόν, for which Harpocration cites
the defence of Lycurgus against the cavils of Meneseachmus,

5. Plutarch, p. 842 F,

Vou. II. AA

354 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

poser: (I.) To revive the obsolete contest of the comedians at the
Chytri, on the third day of the Anthesteria, with the additional re-
gulation that the victor should, without any further trial (ἄκριτος),
be admitted to the competition at the great Dionysia.’ (II.) That
bronze statues should be erected to the three great tragedians,
fEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and that authenticated
copies of their plays should be laid up in the public archives,
and strictly followed in the public representations. Ptolemy
Euergetes dishonestly possessed himself of these original manu-
scripts, for which, however, he had to forfeit a deposit of
fifteen talents? If it had not been for this enactment of
Lycurgus, it is probable that the text of the Greek dramatists
would have been much more corrupt than it is. (III.) That,
to prevent the kidnapping of free citizens; no one should buy a
slave without the warranty and authorization of a former
master.’ (IV.) To establish in honour of his family god,
Poseidon, at least three cyclical choruses in the Peirzeus ; and to
give to the victors not less than ten minz as a prize, besides
second and third prizes of eight and six mine. (V.) To punish
with a penalty of six thousand drachmee any woman who drove
to the Eleusinian festival in a chariot and pair :* it appears
that his own wife, Callisto, transgressed this law, and was fined
accordingly.’ If we understand the notice in Plutarch, he held
some office analogous to that of a police magistrate,’ and in
this capacity exhibited no little vigour and severity. As a
public accuser, too, he often appeared in the courts; and at

1 There is some obscurity in the short notice of Plutarch [?], p. 841 F: τὸν περὶ
τῶν κωμῳδῶν ἀγῶνα Tots Χύτροις ἐπιτελεῖν ἐφάμιλλον ἐν τῷ θεάτρῳ καὶ τὸν νικήσαντα
εἰς ἄστυ καταλέγεσθαι πρότερον οὐκ ἐξόν, ἀναλαμβάνων τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐκλελοιπότα. By
ἄστυ he must mean τὰ ἐν ἄστει Διονύσια. The practice referred to is probably
that explained explained in Photius, Suidas, Hesychius, s.v. νεμήσεις ὑποκριτῶν.

2 See Béckh, Gr. Trag. Princ. pp. 12, 13.

3 This must be the meaning of the words of Plutarch, which again are somewhat
obscure from their brevity (p. 842 A): μηδενὶ ἐξεῖναι ᾿Αθηναίων μηδὲ τῶν οἰκούντων
᾿Αθήνησιν ἐλεύθερον σῶμα πρίασθαι ἐπὶ δουλείᾳ ἐκ τῶν ἁλισκομένων ἄνευ τῆς τοῦ
προτέρου δεσπότου γνώμης.

4 In illustration of this see Dem. σ, Mid.p. 565.

5 Alian, V. H. XIII. 24.

8 p. 841 D: ἔσχε δὲ καὶ τοῦ ἄστεος τὴν φυλακὴν Kal τῶν κακούργων Thy σύλληψιψ
ods ἐξήλασεν ἅπαντας, ὡς καὶ τῶν σοφιστῶν ἐνίους λέγειν Λυκοῦργον οὐ μέλανι ἀλλὰ
θανάτῳ χρίοντα τὸν κάλαμον κατὰ τῶν πονηρῶν οὕτω συγγράφειν.

LYCURGUS. 355

least in two cases—those of Leocrates and Diphilus—he ob-
tained a sentence of death against notorious offenders. He
was sufficiently known as a member of the anti-Macedonian
party to obtain the perilous honour of being included with
Demosthenes in Alexander’s demand for the extradition of
certain orators, a danger which the firmness of his coun-
trymen enabled him to escape.’ The year of his death is not
known, but he did not survive the downfal of the patriotic party.
For Plutarch tells us that he was not alive when Hypereides
accused Demosthenes in the business of Harpalus,’ and it seems
extremely probable that Lycurgus died soon after the termina-
tion of his third quadriennial service as public treasurer—i. e.
in B.c. 329 or 328. He was buried at the public expense on
the road to the Academy, on the spot which was afterwards
occupied by the garden of the philosopher Melanthius.* In
his lifetime he had often been honoured with crowns, statues,
and a seat in the town-hall, and the last privilege was made
hereditary in his family. He left three sons, Abron, Lycurgus,
and Lycophron, of whom the first two died without issue, but
the third was represented by lineal descendants to a later
period.” A statue in honour of Lycurgus was erected some
time after his death (in B.c. 307) near those of the ten Eponymi
in the market-place.®

Of the twenty speeches of this eminent statesman, of which
the titles are preserved, we have only one complete oration,
that against the fugitive Leocrates, who had returned to Athens
eight years after the battle of Cheroneia, when he had forsaken
his country, although by a law, passed immediately after the
battle, emigration was forbidden under pain of death. This
speech is in strict accordance with all that we know of the
character and habits of Lycurgus. We are told’ that he was
very diligent in preparing his speeches, and not able to express
himself extempore ; and so anxious was he to note his thoughts

1 Arrian, I. το, 4; Diodor. XVII, 15.

2 Plut. Vita Hyperid. p. 848 F.

3 See Plut. Vita Lyc. p. 842 F. It is inferred also that as his sons were released
from prison on the intercession of Demosthenes who was then in exile, that
Lycurgus must have been dead some little time.

4 Plut. p. 842 E. 5 Td. p. 843 A.

6 Td. p. 852 B; Pausan. I. 8, 2. 7 Plutarch, p. 842 C.

AA 2

356. ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

as they occurred to him that his writing materials were always
placed by his bed-side. We see the traces of this elaborate
preparation in the speech against Leocrates, which is full of
historical reading and poetical quotations, the latter sometimes
running to a considerable length.’ And we have no doubt that
Hermogenes was justified in saying of all his speeches that he
often indulges in a frequency of digressions to fables, histories, -
and poems.? One of the most pleasing of his references to old
stories is the anecdote which he tells of the young man who
stayed behind to carry off his old father during an eruption of
Mount AXtna, and round whom the lava flowed innocuously,
while it destroyed the other fugitives.* There is almost a
Demosthenic vigour in the passage in which he describes the
trembling inquiries of the women and the old men preparing
for the defence of the city after the disaster of Chzeroneia,* and
that in which he checks any appeal to pity on the part of the
accused.” On the whole, although we cannot place Lycurgus
in the first rank of orators, we may regret that we have not a
few more specimens of the compositions of such an eminent
and popular statesman.

§ 4. Closely connected in his general policy with Lycurgus
and Demosthenes, though occasionally opposed to one or the
other, Hyreripes, or Hyrererpss,’ the son of Glaucippus,’ of —

1 There are fifty-five lines of Euripides quoted in p. 161, and thirty-two of Tyr-
teus in p. 163. The quotation from the unknown poet in p. 159, belongs to a
numerous class of passages embodying the sentiment quem Deus vult perdere
dementat prius. See Wyttenb. on Plut. de audiendis poetis, p. 17 B; Ruhnken on
Vell. Patere. IT. 57.

2 περὶ ἰδεῶν, ΤΙ. 11, p. 389, Walz: χρῆται δὲ πολλαῖς πολλάκις Kal ταῖς παρεκ-
βάσεσιν ἐπὶ μύθους καὶ ἱστορίας καὶ ποιήματα. Lycurgus is quite conscious of this
tendency. In one passage, he begins a lengthened reference to the old mythology
of Athens, by saying: καί τοι σκέψασθε, ὦ ἄνδρες" οὐ γὰρ ἀποστήσομαι τῶν παλαιῶν.
οπδιονωδα Hoes abo. 3 p. 159.

4 p. 153, ὃ 40. There is something very vivid in the picture of the veterans ἐπὶ
γήρως 609 περιφθειρομένους, διπλᾶ τὰ ἱμάτια ἐμπεπορπημένους. ᾿

5 p. 168, § 147.

6 The name is written Ὑπερείδης in some of the best MSS. of Demosthenes, de
Corond, p. 302, 26 ; Fals. Leg. 376, 17. The grammarians give us both ‘Ywrepidns
from Ὕπερος, like Ὑλλίδης from Ὕλλος (Etym. M. s.v.), and Ὑπερείδης from
Ὑπερεύς, like Πηλείδης from ἸΤηλεύς (Phrynichus, p. 454, Lobeck). Both as
common word and as a proper name Uzepos is the more common.

7 Hypereides had a son, Glaucippus, who obtained some reputation as a ἀν speaker,

HYPEREIDES. 3857

the demus Collytus, was one of the active leaders in that anti-
Macedonian patriotism, to which he was ultimately a martyr.
The year of his birth is not known, but it is probable that he
was not much younger than Lycurgus. Plutarch indeed says
that he was a hearer (axpoarnc) of Lycurgus, but this must be
-a mistake, unless he means that he heard him speak in public,
for that great financier was not a teacher of rhetoric. There is
every reason, however, to believe that he was a fellow-pupil of
Lycurgus as a disciple of Plato and Isocrates.' He seems to have
belonged to the more opulent class, for he not only enjoyed the
best education, but appears to have been able to contribute in the
most munificent manner to the public expenditure of his country.
For example, in the year B.c. 358 he got up, by public sub-
scription, an equipment of forty triremes for the war against
Philip in Eubcea, and undertook himself the fitting out of two
of these ships, one in his own name, the other in that of his
son ;* and when he served as trierarch at Byzantium in B.c.
340, he bore the expenses of the Choragia in his absence.’
Notwithstanding his opulence, he was for some years en
gaged as a writer of speeches in private causes. His public
services were as follows :—In B.c. 351 he undertook an embassy
to Rhodes ;* in B.c. 346 he successfully prosecuted the venal
and traitorous Philocrates;° when Philip occupied Elatea in
B.C. 338 he was one of the ambassadors who persuaded the
Thebans to join with Athens against the invader ;° and after
the battle of Chzeroneia he proposed the high-spirited decree to
give the franchise to the resident aliens, to restore the degraded,
to manumit the slaves, and send down the women, children, and
sacred objects to the Peirzeus.’ This decree was not carried out,
but was so far approved as to give the sycophant Aristogeiton a
pretext for indicting him for unconstitutional proceedings (7apa-
νόμων). He was acquitted; and it was on this occasion that,

1 The statement of Plutarch will simply amount to this, if we read (p. 848 D):
ἀκροατὴς δὲ Ἡλάτωνος γενόμενος τοῦ φιλοσόφου ἅμα Λυκούργῳ (for Λυκούργου), καὶ
᾿Ισοκράτους τοῦ ῥήτορος. ᾿

2 Plutarch, p. 849 F. 3 Td. p. 848-E. 4 Id. p. 850 A.

5 Demosth. de Falsdé Leg. p. 376, 17. 6 Id. de Corond, p. 291, 6.

7 Lycurg. c. Leocratem, ὃ 41; Plut. p. 848 F, 849 A; Pseudo-Dem. c. Aristog.
II. p. 803.

358 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

being charged with having overlooked many of the established
laws, he said, ‘My eyes were darkened with the shadow of the
Macedonian arms; it was not I who wrote the decree, but the
battle at Cheroneia.’’ His active opposition to Macedon never
ceased, and he was one of the orators demanded by Alexander
after the capture of Thebes. This peril, which he narrowly
escaped, did not damp his patriotic ardour, for we find that he
opposed Alexander’s demand for an Athenian fleet to help him
against the Persians.?, The unfortunate affair of Harpalus seems
to have obliged Hypereides to come forward as the accuser of
Demosthenes, for whom he had once obtained a golden crown.’
We do not know all the circumstances. Plutarch imtimates
that he was publicly appointed to this invidious office, because
he was the only orator not suspected of being bribed.* As
Demosthenes was allowed to escape, it is not impossible that
the whole proceeding was a collusion devised by the patriots to
enable them to temporize with Macedon. Be this as it may,
we find Hypereides warmly united with Demosthenes in the
prosecution of the Lamian war.’ He was one of the most
active agents in stimulating that hopeful insurrection against
the Macedonian domination, and was selected to deliver the
funeral oration in honour of those who fell with the valiant
Leosthenes.° _ When the battle of Crannon, in B. ©. 322, over-
threw the last hopes of Athenian independence, Hypereides was
obliged to fly from Athens with the other proscribed orators.
He took refuge with Aristonicus and Himereeus, in the shrine
of Aiacus in Aigina, whence he was torn by Archias and sent as a
prisoner to Antipater, by whom he was put to death with cir-
cumstances of great cruelty and brutality.’

The titles of sixty-one orations, attributed to Hypereides,
were preserved by the ancient authorities, who tell us that of
seventy-seven speeches which bore his name, fifty-two were

1 Plut. p. 849 A: ‘ ἐπεσκότει,᾽ ἔφη “μοι τὰ Μακεδόνων ὅπλα᾽ καὶ οὐκ ἐγὼ τὸ

ψήφισμα ἔγραψα, ἡ δ᾽ ἐν Χαιρωνείᾳ μάχη.
2 Plut. p. 848 D; cf. 847 C. 3 See Dem. de Corond, p. 302.
4 p. 848 E: μόνος yap ἔμεινεν ἀδωροδόκητος.
5 Plut. Phocion, c. 23; X. Orat. p. 848 Εἰ, 849 F; Justin, XIII. 5.
6. Diodor. XVIII. 3.
7 Plut. Dem. c. 28; Phocion, 29; X. Orat. 849 C; Photius, p. 496; <a
Hist. of Greece, XII. p. 440.

HYPEREIDES. 359

genuine.’ Till within the last few years, fortune had dealt
more roughly with his remains than with those of any one of
the ten orators; for while even Lycurgus and Deinarchus are
represented by one or more complete harangues, Hypereides
was lost altogether, with the exception of a number of frag-
ments which were individually of little importance.? The
present generation has been permitted to rehabilitate him in
Greek literature. In the spring of 1847, Mr. A. C. Harris of
Alexandria found some fragments of papyrus, written over with
Greek characters, at Thebes in Upper Egypt, and published
them in a lithographed facsimile in the autumn of 1848. An .
arrangement and translation of these fragments was communi-
cated to the London Philological Society in February, 1849,
by Mr. Samuel Sharpe ;* but though Mr. Harris had suggested
that the fragments probably belonged to the speech of Hype-
reides against Demosthenes in the matter of Harpalus, Mr.
Sharpe seemed rather to think that they belonged to some rhe-
torical exercise on the subject. Mr. Churchill Babington, in
November, 1849, made a communication to the Royal Society
of Literature, in which he showed that these fragments were
quoted by Harpocration, Photius, and Suidas, and that they
must. be considered as belonging to the genuine oration of
Hypereides; and at the beginning of 1850 she published a
learned edition of these remains, with an introduction and com-
mentary.’ They had been previously edited, but without Mr.
Babington’s knowledge, by Bockh and Sauppe. These pieces
of papyrus, though interesting in themselves, were chiefly
valuable because they led to the publication of another manu-
script of the same kind, which Mr. Joseph Arden had procured
at the same place in January, 1847. Some of the fragments
discovered by Mr. Harris evidently did not belong to the
speech against Demosthenes, and it turned out that they were

1 Plutarch, p. 849 D; Phot. p. 495 B; Westermann, Gesch. d. Beredtsamkeit,
p- 307, gives a list of all the titles.

2 See Kiessling, De Hyperide Comment. II. Hildburgh. 1837.

3 Proceedings of the Philological Society, vol. IV. no. 79.

4 The Oration of Hyperides against Demosthenes respecting the treaswre of Har-
palus; with a preliminary Dissertation and Notes, and a facsimile of a portion of
the MS. By Churchill Babington, M.A., Fellow of St. John’s College, Cam-
bridge, 1850.

360 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

a portion of the speech of Hypereides for Lycophron, of which
Mr. Arden secured fifteen continuous columns. And the
same papyrus contained the complete oration of Hypereides for
Euxenippus. These remains were published by Mr. Churchill
Babington, with a facsimile of the original manuscript and a
learned commentary, in the spring of 1853 ;' shortly after-
wards the late Professor Schneidewin of Gottingen edited them
in a revised text, with critical notes, and prefixed the Harrisian
fragments of the apology for Lycophron ;* and since then Mr.
Babington has discovered the funeral oration of Hypereides,
nearly complete, among some papyri lately purchased by the
British Museum.* We are thus enabled to deal with Hyper-
eides as an extant Greek author, and to estimate his title to
a place among the ten orators. .

The fragments of the speech against Demosthenes are not
sufficiently complete to furnish the materials of a literary criti-
cism, but the other fragments, published by Mr. Babington,
furnish a good example of the style of Hypereides, and quite

1 The Orations of Hyperides for Lycophron and Euxenippus, now first printed in
facsimile; with a short account of the discovery of the original MS. at Western
Thebes, in Upper Egypt, in 1847, by Joseph Arden, Esq.: the text edited, with
Notes and Illustrations, by the Rev. Churchill Babington, Cambridge, 1853.

2 Hyperidis Orationes due ex papyro Ardeniano edite ; post Ch. Babingtonem,
emendavit et scholia adjecit F. G. Schneidewin, Gotting., 1853.

3 The papyrus was brought from Egypt by Mr. Stodart, in 1856. Mr. Babing-
ton has given an account of it in the Cambridge Journal of Classical and Sacred
Philology, No. X. p. 81, and he has favoured us with the following notice of the
rediscovered speech, which he is about to edit:—‘The ἐπιτάφιος was delivered
towards the close of the year 323 B.c. over Leosthenes and his comrades who fell
in the Lamian war. Hyperides was appointed as the orator on this occasion by a
public vote. Not only is a long fragment of his speech preserved by Stobzeus, but
a considerable part, possibly the greater part, exists in MS. in the British
Museum, written on a very early papyrus, apparently of the second or third cen-
tury after Christ, and brought from Egypt in 1856. The topics of praise in his
oration are threefold: the city, the deceased warriors, and their general Leosthenes.
He enlarges much on the bravery, tactics and policy of Leosthenes, and introduces,
in the course of his remarks, various historical allusions to the Lamian war.
Further on he apostrophizes the deceased soldiers, who have filled all Greece with
their glory, and whose memory will be recalled by every scene of public and social
life. The epilogus (preserved by Stobeus) is designed to comfort the survivors,
and expresses a hope, though neither sure nor certain, that the departed warriors
are still in being and in enjoyment of a blessed immortality. This oration was
considered by the ancients to be one of the happiest productions of Hyperides,’

HYPEREIDES. 361

justify the account which the ancients have given us of his
peculiar characteristics.

The accuser of Lycophron was no less a person than Lycurgus,
who brought an εἰσαγγελία, or special impeachment,’ against him,
for adultery and other crimes, and fragments are still extant of
his two orations on the subject; the first, to which answer is
made in the speech which Hypereides composed to be spoken
by the defendant, and which procured a conviction; and the
second, in which the damages were discussed. From the men-
tion of Dioxippus,’ the celebrated wrestler, who died in B.c. 326,°
but was in the prime of life when this oration was delivered, it
is inferred that it was written quite at the beginning of Alex-
ander’s reign.

In the oration for Euxenippus, which is probably of about the
same date as that for Lycophron,* Hypereides speaks in his own
person, and as the second advocate for the defendant, who has
also two accusers, Polyeuctus of Cydantidee—not the well-known
orator of Sphettus, but a man of some consideration at Athens’
—and Lycurgus. In this case also Hypereides had to answer
an εἰσαγγελία, and one of his arguments is, that this form of
proceeding is not applicable to such a frivolous charge brought
against a private individual.’ The case arose out of the assign-
ment to Athens, after the battle of Cheroneia, of the territory
of Oropus. ‘This territory consisted of five hills (ὄρη), of which
each was assigned by lot to two Athenian tribes. The hill which
thus fell to the tribes Acamantis and Hippothoontis was claimed

1 The εἰσαγγελία was adopted in the case of undefined and extraordinary offences
against the public (κυρίως ἡ περὶ καινῶν καὶ δημοσίων ἀδικημάτων εἰσωγομένη δίκη
ὑπὸ τῶν ἸΤρυτανέων, Suidas), It was a favourite mode of proceeding with Lycurgus,
who adopted it against Leocrates, and was recommended by the advantage that it
did not bring any penalty on the unsuccessful prosecutor. Hypereides himself
availed himself of this process in his impeachment of Philocrates and Diopeithes
(pro Euxenipp. col. 39).

2 Col. 5.

8 Athenzus, VI. c. 57 (I. p. 546, Dindorf.), Curtius, IX. 29, quoted by Babing-
ton, p. XIV.

4 The manner, in which Olympias and Alexander are mentioned together (col.
31), points to the beginning of Alexander’s reign.

® Schneidewin p. 34. In col. 27 Polyeuctus is addressed as ὃς οὐ μόνον ὑπὲρ
σεαυτοῦ δύνασαι εἰπεῖν ἀλλὰ Kal ὅλῃ πόλει πράγματα παρέχειν ἱκανὸς el.

§ Col. 18.

362 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

for the hero Amphiaraus ; and, to quiet all doubts on the subject,
Euxenippus and two others were deputed to sleep in the temple
of Amphiaraus at Oropus, in the hope of being favoured with a
dream in reference to the claims of the oracular hero. It seems
that they reported a vision unfavourable to the occupation of the
consecrated hill by the two tribes. Whereupon Polyeuctus pro-
posed that the other eight tribes should make compensation
for the loss. This proposition was rejected, and its proposer
fined twenty-five drachme. Polyeuctus endeavoured to avenge
himself on the reporter of the dream by indicting him for a false
and suborned account of his vision, and, as usual in such cases,
he rakes up a number of other matters against him, especially
with reference to some dealings in the silver mines. The co-
operation of Lycurgus was probably secured by the charge of
Macedonizing, which is brought against Euxenippus, because he
had aided Olympias in the dedication of a patera in the temple
of health at Athens.

If we compare these orations with the criticisms of the
ancients, we shall find that they justify the favourable expecta-
tions which we were induced to form respecting this orator.
Cicero calls him a highly finished speaker,’ and says that he
was acute,’ subtle,* and facetious.’ Quintilian’ defines him as
pleasant and acute, but better suited to conduct causes of
inferior importance. Dionysius declares® that in cunning irony
he was unrivalled, that he sticks to the necessary points before
him, that he is full of pleasantness, and that while he seems to
be simple he is not deficient in power; and his chief pecu-
liarities are said to be’ strength of diction, simplicity of com-

1 De Oratore, I. 13, 58: ‘ perfectus in dicendo et perpolitus.’

2 Ibid. III. 7, 28: ‘acumen habuit.’

ὁ. Brutus, τῇ, 67: ‘delectantur e& subtilitate quam Atticam sppolland-+ii ie
ride volunt esse et βαρεῖ Laudo.’

4 Orator. 26, 90: ‘satis in orationibus facetus.’

5 J. O. X. 1, 77: ‘dulcis in primis et acutus Hyperides, sed minoribus causis ut
non dixerim utilior, magis par.’

6 De vet. Script. cens. Ὁ. 434, Reiske: τῇ τῆς εἰρωνείας πανουργίᾳ πάντας (ὑπερ-
npka@s), ἔτι δὲ τοῦ κρινομένου διαπαντὸς ἔχεται, καὶ ταῖς ἀνάγκαις τοῦ πράγματος
ἐμπέφυκε καὶ συνέσει πολλῇ κεχορήγηται, καὶ χαριτὸς μεστός ἐστιν" καὶ δοκῶν ἁπλοῦς
οὐκ ἀπήλλακται δεινότητος.

7 Id. ibid. p. 643: τὰ μέγιστα ἴδια τῆς μὲν λέξεως τὸ ἰσχυρόν, τῆς δὲ συνθέσεως τὸ
ἁπλοῦν, τῶν δὲ πραγμάτων τὸ εὔκαιρον, τῆς δὲ κατασκευῆς τὸ μὴ τραγικὸν μηδὲ ὀγκῶδες,

ZESCHINES. 363

position, propriety in the selection of his subject-matter, and
the absence of all pomposity in his language. And Longinus
dwells' emphatically on his mastery of sarcasm, irony, and well-
bred facetiousness. All these characteristics may be exemplified
-in the orations. For example, there could not be ἃ better
instance of sarcasm than his rebuff to Polyeuctus: ‘ If you had
been acquitted, my client would not have given a false report
about the god; but since it so happened that you were con-
victed, Euxenippus must needs be ruined!” The private cha-
racter of Hypereides was by no means irreproachable. His
love for the beautiful was by no means abstract or Platonic,
and the most famous hetere of the day counted the orator
amoung their lovers.* There is a story that when his eloquence
failed to defend the beautiful Phryne from a charge of impiety,
he moved the hearts of the heliastz by an appeal to her charms.*
He was also a noted epicure, and the comic poets ridiculed his
fondness for expensive dishes of fish.’

ὃ 5. By far the most eminent of the Macedonian party was
ZEscHineEs, who, in some qualifications, did not fall far short of
his great rival Demosthenes.’ He was born B.c. 389.’ His
origin and early history are presented to us under very different
aspects by Demosthenes and himself. The former, in a burst
of invective, to which we have already referred,* declares that
the father of Aischines, originally called Tromes, but styled
Atrometus by his son, was the worthless slave of a poor school-
master, and afterwards kept a small school himself; and that
his mother, originally called Empusa, the hobgoblin, but digni-

1 De Sublim. 34, p. 284, Spengel: ἄφατοι rept αὐτόν εἰσιν doretcpol. μυκτὴρ πολι-
τικώτατος, εὐγένεια, TO κατὰ τὰς εἰρωνείας εὐπάλαιστρον, σκώμματα οὐκ ἄμουσα, δια-
συρμός τε ἐπιδέξιος, καὶ πολὺ τὸ κωμικὸν, καὶ, μετὰ παιδιᾶς εὐστόχου κέντρον, ἀμίμητον
δὲ εἰπεῖν τὸ ἐν πᾶσι τούτοις ἐπαφρόδιτον.

2 Col. 30: εἶτ᾽ εἰ μὲν ἀπέφυγες τὴν γραφήν, οὐκ ἂν μὐδιϑύοῤσατο οὗτος τοῦ θεοῦ,
ἐπειδὴ δὲ συνέβη σοι ἁλῶναι, Εὐξένιππον δεῖ ἀπολωλέναι.

8. Alciphron Ep. I. 30—32.

4 This story is best told in the supplement to Barthélémy’s Anacharse, entitled
Fétes et Courtisanes de la Gréce, Paris, 1801, vol. LV. p. 188.

5 Timocles, apud Athen. VIII. 341 F, 342 A.

® Dionys. Hal. De adm. vi dic. in Dem. p. 1063. Cic. Orat. 9, 29. ὁ

7 In his speech against Timarchus, p. 78, which was delivered in B.0. 345, he
says that he was then in his forty-fifth year.

8 De Corond, p. 270, above, chapter X LI. § 6.

364 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

fied by her son with the majestic name Glaucothea, was the
cast-off concubine of a galley-piper, who afterwards became a
Bacchanalian priestess of the lowest class ; and we are told that
Zschines in his early life assisted in the humble and degrading
occupations of both his parents.’ In his speech on the Embassy,’
“Eschines lays claim to the most creditable antecedents in all
respects. Pointing to his father, who was present, as nearly
the oldest of the Athenian citizens, having attained the advanced
age of ninety-four years, he tells his hearers that Atrometus,
before he lost his property, was an athlete or competitor in the
public games; and that after his banishment by the Thirty he
served as a mercenary soldier in Asia. He asserts that the
family belonged to the clan of the Eteobutade, which counted
Lycurgus among its members, and that his father enjoyed the
more substantial credit of assisting Thrasybulus to restore the
democracy at Athens. His mother, too, who had shared in
her husband’s exile, was originally and properly called Glaucis
or Glaucothea,’ being the daughter of a respectable Athenian
citizen, Glaucias of Acharne. The respectability of the family
is farther attested by the fact that his brothers, Philochares
and Aphobetus—whose name, by the way, seems to show that
‘the father was really called Atrometus, and not Tromes‘—had
filled very eminent positions in the military and civil service
of their country. The former had served with distinction under
Iphicrates, and had been thrice elected to the office of general,
i.e. one of the ten commissioners for ‘managing the war
ministry at Athens. The latter had gone as ambassador to
Persia, and had held some financial appointment at Athens.’
With regard to himself, Aischines tells us that he served in
the army from his earliest youth, first as one of the περίπολοι
or patrols, who guarded the frontiers, and afterwards as a pro-
bationary or supplementary soldier in foreign expeditions.’ In

1 De Corond, p. 313. 3. p.47.

3 Libanius calls her Leucothea. See Taylor, Pref. ad Asch. Epist. p. 653 sq.

4 In his speech on the Embassy, p. 431 Demosthenes is content to define his
opponent as τὸν ᾿Ατρομήτου τοῦ γραμματιστοῦ καὶ Τλαυκοθέας τῆς τοὺς θιάσους cuva-
γούσης.

5. Asch. De F. Leg. p. 48.

5 Id. ibid. p. 50: πρώτην δ᾽ ἐξελθὼν στρατείαν τὴν ἐν τοῖς μέρεσι καλουμένην...

. ZESCHINES. 365

this way he fought at Phlius in B.c. 368, and at Mantincia in
B.c. 362. And in the battle of Tamyne in Eubeea, in B.c. 349,
he exhibited such conspicuous valour that he was crowned on
the field by Phocion, and sent to announce the victory at
Athens. With all this, his means were very limited, and he
was obliged to maintain himself by turning his natural advan-
tages to the best. account. Having a robust and active frame,’
he was employed to assist in the exercises of the gymnasia ;? and
as his voice was powerful and harmonious, he found employment
as a tragic actor, though he did not rise to the highest rank in
the histrionic art,* and on one occasion was hissed off the
stage in the character of Ginomaus.* Having acquired, either
in his father’s writing-school or elsewhere, a great command of
his pen, he was employed as a public clerk or secretary, and in
this capacity he served first Aristophon,’ and afterwards Eubulus,°
to whose party he was afterwards attached as an orator. So
far as this, there may have been sufficient foundation for the
personalities of Demosthenes. But there can scarcely be any
doubt that the aspersions in the oration on the Crown, which
go much farther than those in the speech on the Embassy, are

καὶ ras ἄλλας τὰς ἐκ διαδοχῆς ἐξόδους τὰς ἐν rots ἐπωνύμοις καὶ τοῖς μέρεσιν ἐξῆλθον.
The phrase ἐν τοῖς μέρεσιν is explained to mean ‘in the safe parts of the battle,’
ὦ. 6., in the rear ranks of the phalanx. Suidas, s. v., rep@pela: ὅτι ἔθος ἣν τοὺς
ἐφήβους μετὰ τὸ γενέσθαι περιπόλους τῆς χώρας στρατεύεσθαι μὲν εἰ συμβαίη πόλεμος,
μὴ μέντοι μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων, ἀλλ᾽ ἰδίᾳ ἐν μέρεσι τοῖς ἀκινδύνοις τῆς μάχης. The
στρατεία ἐν τοῖς ἐπωνύμοις refers to the practice of counting the years of military
service from eighteen to sixty by the names of the ἄρχοντες ἐπώνυμοι of the forty-
two years, and then selecting soldiers for special expeditions from a certain num-
ber of years. This appears from the passage of Aristotle quoted by Suidas, s. νυ.
στρατεία ἐν τοῖς ἐπωνύμοις (p. 3416 B. Gaisford) : ὅταν ἡλικίαν ἐκπέμπωσιν, προσ-
γράφουσιν ἀπὸ τίνος "Αρχοντος ᾿Επωνύμου μέχρι τίνος δεῖ στρατεύεσθαι.

1 He seems, however, to have been of short stature. Demosthenes calls him
καλὸς ἀνδριάς, which implies a doll or puppet (see our note on the Theatre of the
Greeks, ed. 6, p. 161), and the phrase ἔσα βαίνων Ἰτυθοκλεῖ (Dem. Fals. Leg. p. 442)
has more point, if we understand it of a diminutive person walking stride for stride
with one much taller. Ulpian says expressly that Auschines was a little man (ad
Or. de Cor. 1. 1.).

2 Plut. p. 840 A: νέος δὲ ὧν καὶ ἐῤῥωμένος τῷ σώματι περὶ ra γυμνάσια ἐπόνει.

3 He was generally τριταγωνιστής. Dem, De Corond, pp. 270, 315.

4 Dem. De Corond, pp. 288, 314, 315.

5 Anonym. Vita. dischinis, p. 245.

6 Photius Cod. LXI. For the intimacy between Auschines and Eubulus, and
the relations of the former to Aristophon, see Dem. Fals. Leg. p. 434.

366 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

grossly exaggerated, perhaps wantonly invented by an exaspe-
rated enemy, who was confident of success, and knew that he
would have the last word.

The first appearance of Aischines as a public speaker was
two years before his military distinctions at Tamyne.’ He had
stored his mind with legal and political knowledge acquired
in his intimate relations with Aristophon and Eubulus, and
very soon became an influential statesman. In the spring of
B.c. 347, he was sent to the Peloponnesus as one of the
ambassadors, appointed, on the motion of Eubulus, after the —
fall of Olynthus, and he spoke before the Ten Thousand at
Megalopolis in opposition to the envoys of Philip, but without
success.” Soon after this, he seems to have despaired of
resisting the power and policy of the Macedonian king, and we
find him among the warmest advocates for peace at any price.
He was one of those who were sent to negociate with Philip at
the end of B.c. 347. His intercourse with the wily monarch
seems to have ended in the sacrifice of his character as a
patriot and an honest man. And there can be little doubt
that from this time he employed his influence and talents
mainly in recommending measures opposed to the best interests
of his country. Notwithstanding his somewhat narrow escape®
from the prosecution brought against him by Demosthenes for
his corrupt misconduct in the embassy, we find him persisting
in the same course, and it was he who was the main cause of
the second Phocian war,‘ which led to the battle of Cheroneia
and the downfal of Greek independence. Always opposed
and in many cases thwarted by Demosthenes, his political and
personal animosity against that statesman finally exploded in
his prosecution of Ctesiphon; and his signal defeat in that
attempt to ruin his antagonist induced him, as we have already
mentioned,’ to retire from Athens and seek the support of his

1 Aisch. Fpist. XII.

2 Dem. Fals. Leg. pp. 344—438. Asch. Fals. Leg. p. 38.

3 Plut. p.840 C: τριάκοντα ψήφοις ἀπέφυγεν. Vita Dem. c. 15, on the authority
of Idomeneus.

4 He gives his own account of the proceedings, in a most vivid description, in
his speech against Ctesiphon, pp. 69, sqq. See Thirlwall VI. p. 55. Grote XI.
p. 650. 5 Above, chapter XLI. § 4.

ZESCHINES. 367

foreign friends. The death of Alexander prevented his in-
tended journey to the court of that monarch." He became
a teacher of rhetoric in Ionia, Caria, and Rhodes, and may be
regarded as the founder of the Rhodian school of eloquence,
which occupied a middle place between the old Attic and the
more recent Asiatic schools. Towards the end of his life he
removed to Samos, where he died in B.c. 314.°

Of the numerous speeches which Aischines must have
delivered,* only three have come down to us. One other was
known to the ancient critics, but rejected by them as not
genuine.” The paucity of his public speeches is accounted for
by the fact that he was regarded as almost the imventor of
extempore speaking, and prided himself on his unpremeditated
fluency.’ We have also twelve epistles attributed to him, of
which nine were known to Photius, who calls them the Muses,
as he also termed the three speeches of Aischines the Graces.’
Modern scholars are agreed that the epistles are not genuine.
His erotic poems, which would have illustrated a passage in his
speech against Timarchus,’ are entirely lost, together with the
ancient commentaries on his writings.” The three extant
speeches are that against Timarchus, which-he delivered in 8.0.
345; that on the Embassy, which is supposed not to have been
spoken as we have it, in B.c. 343, but to have been written
and published as a defence of his policy and character ;" and

1 Plutarch, p. 840 D.: καὶ ἐλθεῖν εἰς Ἔφεσον ὡς Αλέξανδρον᾽ τοῦ δὲ τελευτήσαντος
ταραχῆς οὔσης ἀπάρας εἰς τὴν Ῥόδον ἐνταῦθα σχολὴν καταστησάμενος ἐδίδασκεν.
Phot. Vit. Soph. p. 509.

2 See Westermann, Gesch. ἃ. Beredtsamkeit I. ὃ 81.

3 Plutarch, p. 840 E. Photius, Cod. LXI. Clinton, 7. H. p. 171.

4 Dem. De Fals. Leg. p. 344.

5 It was called ὁ Δηλιακὸς νόμος. See Plut. p. 840 E. - Philostr. I. 18. Apollon.
Vit. p. 248. Photius, Cod. LXI. attributes it to a contemporary of the same name.

6 Philostr. Vit. Soph. p. 482: οἱ δὲ Αἰσχίνου φασι τὸ αὐτοσχεδιάζειν εὕρημα, p.
509: ἀπ᾽ Αἰσχίνου δ᾽ ἤρξατο θεοφορήτῳ ὁρμῇ αὐτοσχεδιάζοντος.

7 Phot. Cod. LXI.

8 See Taylor (pref. p. 651), and Markland (ibid. p. 666, 679), who speaks
favourably, however, of the third Epistle,

Βυρίίχο.

10 He was made the subject of special discussion by Cecilius, by Didymus, and
by Aspasius.

1 Plut. Vit. Dem. c. 15 ; Hermogenes, περὶ τῶν στασέων, p. 28, ed. Walz.

368 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

that against Ctesiphon, spoken in 8.c. 330. All these are
extremely lively, and full of interesting details. He seems,
indeed, to have been quite a master of narrative. For example,
there are few better specimens of description than the picture
which he gives us of the offended gravity of Autolycus, the
Areopagite, in the speech against Timarchus,' or his account,
whether true or false, of the failure of Demosthenes before
Philip in the speech on the Embassy,’ or that in the speech
against Ctesiphon,’ in which he depicts the religious phrensy of
the Amphictyons. Aischines is well characterized by Dionysius
as less distinguished by art than by natural facility—our first
impression is, that he is merely graceful and elegant, but we
find on examination that he is full of spirit and vigour.’
Hermogenes says that he combines grandeur with rhetorical
elegance.’ Cicero opposes his noisy declamation (sonitus) to
the power (vis) of Demosthenes,’ but attributes to him, as
special characteristics, a smoothness of diction and a brilliancy of
style,’ and not only paid him the compliment of translating
his speech against Ctesiphon,* but twice imitated, by an almost
literal adoption of the passage, the well-known description of
the torments of the guilty in the speech against Timarchus?
Quintilian, indeed, intimates by a strong metaphor that
Aischines is distinguished rather by turgid verbosity than by
solidity of argument. But most of those who have
read his remains will share the regret, expressed by Dionysius,
that Aischines had so little occasion to compose formal speeches,
and that he could say with truth, in his speech against Timarchus,

1 p, 12. 2p, 32. 3 p. 70.

4 De Vet. Script. Cens. p. 434: οὐ πάνυ μὲν ἔντεχνος, τῇ δὲ παρὰ τῆς φύσεως
εὐχερείᾳ κεχορηγημένος ... . καὶ ἡδὺς μὲν αὐτόθεν ἐντυχόντι, σφοδρὸς δ᾽ ἐξετα-
σθείς. ‘

5 περὶ ἰδεῶν p. 384, Walz: τῷ μεγέθει μετὰ τοῦ κατὰ σχῆμα κάλλους πλεονάζων.

6 De Oratore, III. 7.

7 Orator.: ‘levitas et splendor verborum.’

8 Hieron. Zp. τοι ; Sidon. Zp, II. 9.

9 p. 27. The imitations are in the speeches pro Sexto Roscio Amerino, and in
L. Calp. Pisonem; see Lord Brougham’s Inaugural Discourse, Works, vol. VII.

. 121.
r 10 J, 0. X. 1, 77: ‘plenior Aischines et magis fusus et grandiori similis, quo
minus strictus est: carnis tamen plus habet, minus lacertorum.’

DEINARCHUS. | 869

that he had not previously indicted or called to account any of
his fellow-citizens.’

§ 6. Detnarcuvs, the latest in point of time, and the lowest
in point of eminence, among the ten orators of the canon, was
born at Corinth somewhere about Ol. 104, 4, B.c. 361. He
came to Athens at a very early age, and devoted himself to the
study of rhetoric, which was then flourishing more than at any
previous time. His principal teacher was Theophrastus, but
he also enjoyed instructive intercourse with Demetrius of
Phalerum.* Being excluded from the debates of the assembly
by his imperfect citizenship, he employed himself as a speech-
writer for the public courts, and seems to have made a consider-
able fortune in this way.‘ As far as he was allowed to enter
on the field of politics, he attached himself to the Macedonian
party. Dionysius’ and Plutarch’ agree in fixing the commence-
ment of Alexander’s reign as the time when Deinarchus first
appeared as an orator. We find him taking an active part in
the prosecution of Demosthenes, which was occasioned by the
disputes about Harpalus and his treasure in B.c. 324; and when
the issue of the Lamian war had deprived Athens of its
greatest orators, Deinarchus remained without a rival, and
from the death of Demades, in B.c. 318, to the expulsion of
Demetrius of Phalerum, by his namesake, the Poliorcetes, in
B.C. 307, he was the chief, if not the only representative of
Attic eloquence; but his inferiority to his great models was
generally felt, and he was called ‘the rustic Demosthenes,” and
designated as one who bore the same relation to his predecessor
that beer does to wine.* On leaving Athens, he fled, like
Aristotle, to Chalcis, where he resided till B.c. 292, when the

1 Photius, Cod. LXTI.

2 Dionys. Hal. De Dinarcho judicium, p. 638, Reiske. Suidas s.v. says: vids
τίνος ἐστιν οὐχ ἱστόρηται, and Plutarch states (p. 850 B), that his father was
Socrates or Sostratus. Dionysius mentions the latter only. * |

3 Dionys. p. 633; Plut. p. 850 C. 4 Plut. iid.

5 Dionys. p. 638. 6 Plut. p. 850 B. C.; see Clinton, F. H. p. 151.

7 Dionys. p. 647: ἄγροικόν τινες Δημοσθένην ἔφασαν εἶναι.

8 Hermogenes, περὶ ἰδεῶν, II. 5, p. 384, Walz: ὥστ᾽ ἤδη τινες καὶ προσπαίζοντες
αὐτὸν οὐκ ἀχαρίτως κρίθινον Δημοσθένην εἰρήκασι. The scholiast understands this
as οὐ σίτινον (vol. V. p. 560, Walz), and the phrase hordearius rhetor, applied to
L. Plotius by Suetonius, De Clar. Rhet. 2, is generally understood in a similar

Vou. 11. BB

3870 ORATORS CONTEMPORARY WITH DEMOSTHENES.

friendly exertions of Theophrastus obtained permission for him
to return.’ One of the last efforts of his oratory was a speech
against his faithless friend Proxenus, who had taken advantage
of his failing sight to rob him of some money while lodging
in his house in the country.? It is stated that this was not
only his last speech, but his first appearance in a law court.®
The year of his death is not known. ὁ

The number of orations ascribed to Deinarchus varies in the
different lists which have come down to us. Demetrius, of
Magnesia, claimed for him no less than 160 ;* in Plutarch’ and
Photius’ we read of 64 genuine speeches; and Dionysius, of
Halicarnassus,’ admits the authenticity of 60 out of the 87
which bore his name. The three, still extant as his, refer to
the business of Harpalus, and were spoken against Demo-
sthenes, Philocles, and Aristogeiton. To these we must in all
probability add the ἔνδειξις against Theocrines, printed among
the orations of Demosthenes, but distinctly attributed to
Deinarchus by Dionysius, and quoted as his by Harpocration.*
As this speech is referred to B.c. 333, it must have been one
of the earliest works of this orator.

We have little reason to regret the loss of so many speeches
of Deinarchus. Even Dionysius, who has paid him the com-
pliment of writing a special treatise on his characteristics,
admits that he was neither the inventor of a special style, nor
the perfecter of that which was invented by others,’ and declares.
that his position cannot be easily defined, because he has
neither anything in common with the other orators, nor any-
_ thing peculiar to himself.” In fact he was neither an original

sense: but surely the opposition must be that between beer and wine, as in Ausch.
Suppl. 930, 1:
ἀλλ᾽ ἄρσενάς τοι τῆσδε γῆς οἰκήτορας
εὑρήσετ᾽ οὐ πίνοντας ἐκ κριθῶν μέθυ,
and in the Epigram ef Julian, Anthol. Pal. IX. 368, II. p. 128.
1 Dionys. p. 634; Plut. p. 850 D; Phot. Cod. CCLXVII. 3 Dionys. <bid.
3 Dionys. p. 635. 4 Dionys. p. 632. 5 p. 850 Ε΄.
6 Cod. CCLXVII. 7 pp. 651 sqq. 8 Above, p. 334 [174].
9 p. 629: διὰ τὸ μήτε εὑρετὴν ἰδίου γεγονέναι χαρακτῆρος τὸν ἄνδρα μήτε τῶν
εὑρημένων ἑτέροις τελειωτήν.

10 p. 630: καιρὸς ἤδη καὶ περὶ τοῦ χαρακτῆρος αὐτοῦ λέγειν. ἔστι δὲ δυσέριστον.
οὐδὲν γὰρ οὔτε κοινὸν οὔτ᾽ ἴδιον ἔσχεν"

DEINARCHUS. 371

man nor a good imitator;’ and although Didymus and Heron
did not disdain to write commentaries on him,’ he was treated
with neglect by the grammarians of Alexandria and Pergamus,'
and some of the critics left him out of the canon of the ten
orators.‘ It is admitted by his most favourable critics that
his style is rugged, careless, and monotonous.’ And we can
see this in the few remains which have come down to us. There
is a wearisome recurrence of the same rhetorical artifices. For
example, he endeavours to produce an impression by repetitions
of the same word,’ which is the favourite figure with young
composers. On the whole he must be regarded as a second-
rate rhetorician, who would have obtained no distinction at
Athens, if the military power of Macedon had not succeeded in
stiflmg the political freedom of the city, and in removing from
the stage of public life all those whose eloquence was calculated
to rouse and guide the energies of the people.

1 Dionysius calls him however the best of the imitators of Demosthenes (p. 646).

® Harpocrat. s.v. ματρυλεῖον ; Suid. s.v. Ἥρων.

3 Dionys. p. 630. 4 Bibl. Coislin. p. 597.

5 Hermogenes calls him τραχὺς thrice in his short notice (vol. III. p. 384,
Walz) ; so also in p. 236, where this quality is also predicated of Aristogeiton. In
the scholia on Hermogenes Deinarchus is called τραχὺς καὶ μονοειδής (vol. VI. p.
319, Walz), and it is said that his style, like that of Thucydides, σκληρὸς dv καὶ
τραχὺς ἀποκναίει τὴν αἴσθησιν.

6 Thus, in the speech against Demosthenes we have, at the beginning of different
paragraphs, such tame repetitions as: δίκαια μὲν οὖν δίκαια τρόπον ye Twa
πάσχει τὸ συνέδριον (p. 91, 18); μισθωτὸς οὗτος, ὦ ᾿Αθηναῖοι, μισθωτὸς οὗτός
ἐστι παλαίος (p. 93, 37); πολλοί, ὦ ἄνδρες, πολλοὶ τῶν πολιτῶν.

372

CHAPTER XLIII.

RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND PROVINCIAL ANTIQUARIES.

§ 1. Connexion between rhetoric and history. School of Isocrates. § 2. Ephorus.
§ 3. Theopompus. ὃ 4. Sicilian School: Antiochus. § 5. Philistus. ὃ 6.
Writers of the Atthides. ,

§ 1. HERE is no doubt that the first beginnings of history

among the Greeks were connected with the literary
efforts of the epic rhapsodists.’ While the Ionic dialect, which
was the conventional language of the epos, was also adopted by
the historian, even though he might belong to the Doric town of
Halicarnassus’ or Cnidus,*? we know that these prose narratives
of facts, mixed up with fables, were publicly recited or acted—
for this word is used—just in the same way as the rhapsodes
delivered the poems of Homer and the other poets of that
school.‘ In the course of time, the rhapsodist was represented
by the sophist, as the regular type of the professional author
and teacher,’ the dramatic element was superseded by an effort
of rhetoric, and the historian was no longer a writer of prose
epics, but a finished product of the schools of rhetoric and
sophistry. ‘Thus we have seen that Thucydides was emphatically
a rhetorical historian. His style was not formed on the model
of the old epic poets and annalists, but directly derived from
his teacher Antiphon.’ And the elaborate speeches, which he
incorporates with his narrative, are in fact the soul of his
history.’ It was not, therefore, without reason that Demo-
sthenes made Thucydides the subject of his special study,® and —

1 See chapter XVIII. : 3 Chapter XIX. 8 7.

3 Chapter XX XVIII. § 9.

4 See the passages which we have quoted in the Theatre of the Greeks, ed. 6,

P 40. Ἢ
5 Above, chapter ΧΙ ΧΎΤΙ, § 2. 6 Chapter XXXIV. §§ το, τι.
7 Ibid. §§ 8, 9. 8 Above, p. 343 [183].

SCHOOL OF ISOCRATES. 373

formed on this model his own simple and energetic style. The
᾿ connexion, however, between rhetoric and history was never
more distinctly and formally acknowledged than in the relations
which connected Isocrates with the historians who were formed
in his school. That rhetorician was not merely a professed
artist of language, but he studiously abstained from the more
immediately practical exhibitions of his art in the law-courts
and public assemblies, and wrote elaborate pamphlets on sub-
jects of general and political interest.’ To him, therefore, it
Was a more congenial occupation to educate the philosophical
historian, than to form the style of the forensic or parliamentary
speaker. Accordingly, we find that Isocrates not only trained
professed rhetoricians, like Naucrates and Theodectes, and
orators like Isceus, Lycurgus, and Hypereides, but also writers,
who, like Ephorus and Theopompus, employed the facilities of
composition which they had acquired under his teaching in the
compilation of elaborate and artistic narratives of past events ;
and so, in the felicitous language of Cicero, from. the school of
Isocrates, as from the Trojan horse, none but princes of Greece
issued forth, some of whom, however, were resolved to become
illustrious only on the parade, while others sought distinction
in the field of battle We are told that Isocrates not only
formed the style and regulated the character of Ephorus and
Theopompus, applying, as Cicero says in several passages, the
spurs to the former, who was bashful and hesitating, and
curbing Theopompus, who was apt to overleap all bounds in the
extravagances of his diction,* but that he even selected for them
the departments of historical investigation which were best
suited to their different abilities, advising the former to confine

1 Above, chapter XXXVI. § 6.

2 De Oratore, 11. 22, ὃ 94: ‘ecce tibi exortus est jee magister istorum
omnium, cujus [v. qui ‘ius e ludo tamquam ex equo Trojano meri principes exie-
runt: sed eorum partim in pomp4, partim in acie illustres esse voluerunt.’

8 De Oratore, III. 9, ὃ 36: ‘quod dicebat Isocrates, doctor singularis: se cal-
caribus in Ephoro, contra autem in Theopompo frenis utisolere. Alterum enim
exsultantem verborum audacia reprimebat, alterum cunctantem et quasi verecun-
dantem incitabat.’ Cf. Brut. 56, ὃ 204; ad Atticum, VI. 1, 12; Suidas, s.v.
"Ἔφορος : ὁ γοῦν Ἰσοκράτης τὸν μὲν [Θεόπομπον] ἔφη ἰχαλινοῦ δεῖσθαι, τὸν δὲ "Ἔφορον
κέντρου.

3874 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

himself to the annals of early times, and the latter to under-
take the more recent and exciting periods.’

§ 2. Ernorus, of Cume, or Cyme, the chief city of AMolis
in Asia Minor, was the son of Demophilus,? and was born in
Ol. 93, 4. B.c. 407. He was sent to Chios, where Isocrates
had opened a school, in order to learn rhetoric with a view to
its practical applications. But when he returned to his native
city, it was found that he had- made but little progress in
oratory, and that his natural abilities held out no prospect of
distinction as a public speaker. Accordingly he went back to
his teacher, and endeavoured to supply his natural defects by
renewed diligence, and was so far successful that he was crowned
along with Theopompus, as one of the best pupils of the Chian
school.’ It is inferred from a passage in Seneca‘ that Ephorus
actually engaged in forensic employments, and was induced to
withdraw from this by the advice of Isocrates, who saw that
his talents were better fitted for a literary life. With the
exception of Plutarch’s statement, that Ephorus declined an
invitation to visit the court of Alexander the Great, perhaps to
accompany him to the East, we know nothing more of the life
of this historian.

The works of Ephorus were the following. (1) A
general history of Greece in thirty books, from the return of

1 Phot. Cod. CCLX.: γεγόνασιν αὐτοῦ [Ἰσοκράτους] ἀκροαταὶ Θεόπομπος ὁ
Xtos καὶ "Ε φορος ὁ Κυμαῖος οἷς καὶ ταῖς ἱστορικαῖς συγγραφαῖς προὐτρέψατο χρήσα-
σθαι πρὸς τὴν ἑκάστου φύσιν ἀναλόγως καὶ τὰς ὑποθέσεις τῆς ἱστορίας αὐτοῖς διανει-
pdpevos. Cod. CLXXVI: καὶ τὰς ἱστορικὰς δὲ ὑποθέσεις τὸν διδάσκοντα αὐτοῖς
[Ἐφόρῳ καὶ Θεοπόμπῳ] προβαλεῖν τὰς μὲν ἄνω τῶν χρόνων "Eddpy, Θεοπόμπῳ δὲ τὰς
μετὰ Θουκυδίδην "Ἑλληνικάς, πρὸς τὴν ἑκατέρου φύσιν καὶ τὸ ἔργον ἁρμοσάμενον.

3 Suidas, s.n., mentions Antiochus as, according to some accounts, the name of
his father: but this may have arisen from some confusion with the Sicilian
historian of that name, and C. Miiller, to whom we are indebted for most of the
materials of this sketch, has reasonably inferred that Demophilus was really his
name, because Plutarch states this, and because it was the name of his son (frag-
menta Historicorum Grecorum, ed. C. et T. Miiller, Paris, 1841, p. LVIL.).

3 Menander, περὶ ἐπιδεικτικῶν, p. 262, Walz: ὥσπερ “Eqopos ἐστεφανοῦτο καὶ
Θεόπομπος of μαθηταὶ Ἰσοκράτους ws διαφέροντες τῶν ἄλλων.

4 De tranquill. Anim. ο. 6: ‘Isocrates Ephorum injecté manu a foro subduxit,
utiliorem componendis monumentis historiarum ratus.’

5 Plut. De Stoic. repugn. c. 20: Καλλισθέζει τινες ἐγκαλοῦσιν ὅτι πρὸς ᾿Αλέξαν-
dpov ἔπλευσεν . . . « Ἕφορον δὲ καὶ Zevoxpdrny καὶ Μενέδημον ἐπαινοῦσι, παραιτη-
σαμένους τὸν ᾿Αλέξανδρον.

Ee .... . ,

EPHORUS. 375

the Heracleid' to the taking of Perinthus, in B.c. 341.2 This
work was completed by his son, Demophilus,’ and continued by
Diyllus down to the death of Philip.* It appears that each
book was complete in itself, and had a special title; for
example, the fourth book was called Europa.’ The titles of
the other books cannot be fixed with certainty, but the
numerous fragments and references enable us to see that the
first three books discussed the early migrations and settlements
of the Greeks; that the fifth book was devoted to Asia and
Africa ; that the sixth and seventh books treated of the Pelopon-
nesus and Sicily; the eighth and ninth contained the history
of Creesus, Cyrus, and Darius; the tenth and eleventh gave
the history of Athens from Marathon to Salamis; the twelfth
and thirteenth carried on the general history of Greece to the
87th Olympiad; the fourteenth narrated the Peloponnesian
war ; the fifteenth and sixteenth contained Hannibal’s invasion
of Sicily, and the domination of the thirty tyrants at Athens ;
the seventeenth was devoted to the expedition of Cyrus the
younger; the eighteenth described the campaigns of Thimbron,
Dercyllidas, and Agesilaus, in Asia Minor; the nineteenth
contained the events from the Corinthian war to the peace of
Antalcidas ; and in books 20—29 the history was carried down
to the beginning of the Sacred War. We have already men-
tioned that the thirtieth book, describing that war, was written
by Demophilus, after the death of his father. :

(IL.) A treatise on discoveries (περὶ εὑρημάτων) in two books.
It has been supposed’ that this work may have been extracted

1 Diodor. IV. τ: τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἡρακλειδῶν καθόδου συνταξάμενος, ταύτην ἀρχὴν
ἐποιήσατο τῆς ἱστορίας.

2 Id. XVI. 26: Ἔφορος τὴν ἱστορίαν ἐνθάδε κατέστροφεν ἐς τὴν Περίνθου πολι-
ορκίαν. é

3 Id. XVI. 14: Anuddiros ὁ Ἑφόρου τοῦ ἱστοριογράφου vids τὸν παραλειφθέντα
πόλεμον ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς ὀνομασθέντα δὲ ἱερὸν συντεταγμένος.

4 Id. ibid.: Δίυλλος δὲ ὁ ᾿Αθηναῖος ἦρκται τῆς ἱστορίας ἀπὸ τὴς ἱεροσυλήσεως καὶ
γέγραφε βιβλίους εἴκοσι καὶ ἕπτα, συμπεριλαβὼν πάσας τὰς ἐν τοῖς χρόνοις τούτοις
γενομένας πράξεις. Diyllus was continued in thirty books by Psaon, of Platza ;
Creuzer, Histor. Kunst. p. 322.

δ᾽ Strabo, I. p. 59: Ἔφορος ἐν τῷ περὶ τῆς Evpwrns λόγῳ.

® ©.Miiller, Pragmenta Historicorwm Grecorum, p. LXI.: ‘sed videas an non
postea aliquis hc inventa ex historiarum libris excerpserit eique compendio
Ephori nomen preefixerit.’

876 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

by some later author from the history of Ephorns, but it is more
probable that it was a supplementary collection of antiquarian
investigations.

(III.) An essay on domestic matters (σύνταγμα ἐπιχώριον).
In this book he seems to have collected a good deal of in-
formation respecting the native celebrities of Cume, mixed up
with particulars relating to the literary history of Greece in
general.

(IV.) A treatise on diction (περὶ λέξεως). This was one of
the many treatises on rhetoric which were superseded by the
more methodical work of Aristotle. The title shows that it was
confined to a mere department of the subject,’ and the refe-
rences to the work by Cicero? and Quintilian® tell us only
that he laid down specific rules for the rhythmical structure of
sentences.

(V.) A collection, in twenty-four books, of pantech
respecting good and evil things (περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν βιβλία
KO), attributed to him by Suidas, is supposed to have been a
series of extracts from his history.

(VI.) An account of the remarkable things in different
countries, in fifteen books (περὶ τῶν ἑκασταχοῦ παραδόξων
βιβλία cé), was either a work preparatory to his history, or a
supplement to the geographical portion of it.*

The numerous fragments of Ephorus, and the frequent
references to him in the pages of ancient writers, especially in
the accurate and judicious work of the geographer Strabo,
enable us to form a sufficient estimate of the loss which we
have sustained in him. Strabo says’ that he makes great use
of Ephorus on account of his careful investigation of local par-
ticulars, and that he is a writer of considerable authority.
And Polybius, whom Strabo quotes, attributes to Ephorus a
᾿ς marked superiority over Eudoxus, and admits his excellence as
a describer of the foundations of cities, the affinities of nations,

1 See above, chapter XL. § 5. 2 Cic. Orator. 57.

3 Quintil. IX. 4, 87.

4 See Marx (apud Miller, Fragm. p. LXI.), who compares the παραδόξων ἐθῶν
συναγωγῇ of Nicolaus Damascenus.

5 p. 422: Ἔφορος ᾧ τὸ πλεῖστον χρώμεθα διὰ τὴν περὶ ταῦτα ἐπιμέλειαν καθάπερ
καὶ Πολύβιος μαρτυρῶν τυγχάνει, ἀνὴρ ἀξιόλογος.

THEOPOMPUS. 377

their emigrations, and their ancient worthies.' Polybius also
concedes to Ephorus the honour of being the first writer of
universal history,? and Strabo gives him the credit of being
the first to separate the historical element from the purely
geographical, and of having made the latter depend on real in-
vestigations.» Some of his descriptions, such as that of Beeotia,*
or that of Crete,® fully justify the praises bestowed upon him
as a geographer, and it is clear that, in drawing up his details
of historical events, he availed himself of all the best authorities,
not neglecting inscriptions and other authentic documents,’ and
correcting many errors of his predecessors.’ This diligence has
rendered him liable to a charge of plagiarism,* but there seems
to be no reason for believing that he intentionally concealed his
obligations to older writers. From the more general accu-
sations of Timzus he is formally vindicated by Polybius ;’ and
though not free from errors,” Ephorus has furnished us, espe-
cially through compilers like Diodorus Siculus, with very much
of our knowledge of Greek history. His style, as might have
been expected from his rhetorical training, was highly coloured
and artificial," and, according to Dionysius,” only he and
Theopompus among all the historical writers wrote in a
perfectly accurate and finished diction. This, at least, seems a
more probable judgment than the harsh statement of Duris of
Samos,” that both Ephorus and Theopompus were entirely
inferior to their predecessors, having no power of imitation
or beauty of language, and being anxious only about their
style.

§ 3. Turoromrvs, who is generally regarded as the pendant
to Ephorus in the portrait gallery of Greek literary history,
was born at Chios in Ol. 100, 3, B.c. 378. His father,

1 Polyb. XXXIV. 1, 3; Strabo, p. 425.

aN. 3252s 8 p. 332. 4 Strabo, pp. 400, sqq.
5 pp. 479, 564. δ». 463.

7 e.g. of Hellanicus, Joseph. 6. Apion. I. 3.

8 Porphyr. ap. Euseb. Prep. Evang. X. 2. 9. XII. 23.

10 Diodor. I. 39 ; Strabo, pp. 303, 422, 464.

Ἢ Polyb. XII. 28; Dion. Hal. De Iseo judic. p..626; Dio Chrys. XVIII.
p- 256, Mor. ; Philostr. Vit. Soph. I. 17; Cie. Orat. 51.

15 Dion. Hal. De Comp. Verb. p. 173.

13 Phot. Cod. CLXXVI. p. 393, Hoeschel.

378 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

Damasistratus, was expelled from Chios by the Lacedzemonians
while the future historian was still a child, perhaps an infant.’
It is quite impossible, then, that Theopompus could have
received instruction from Isocrates in his native island of
Chios,’ and it is probable that the travels of his earlier years
included a visit to Athens, where he enjoyed a lengthened
intercourse with the great rhetorician. Having received a
complete training in this school, aud being relieved by his
ample patrimony from the necessity of writing for the law
courts, he devoted himself to the composition of set speeches
(ἐπιδείξεις), in imitation of his master, which he delivered in
every considerable city, and obtained great renown by these
displays,* especially in B.c. 352, when he won the prize, against
Naucrates and Isocrates, in the competition instituted by Arte-
misia for the best speech in honour of her deceased husband,
Mausolus.* Satisfied with the applause which he had gained by
these oratorical efforts, he followed the advice of Isocrates,
and applied himself to the composition of history,’ a task for
which he was especially qualified by the knowledge which he
acquired in his travels, and by his political experience. For
it appears that on his return to Chios, in consequence of the
letters of Alexander the Great, calling on the people of that
island to restore their exiles, and probably written in B.c. 333,
Theopompus took the lead in the government of his native city.
As long as Alexander lived he was maintained at the head
of the aristocratic party, in spite of his overbearing and
haughty temper, and the bitter and formidable attacks of the
eminent rhetorician Theocritus.° On the death of his protector
he was again banished from Chios, and took refuge in Egypt,
where, however, he did not obtain a friendly reception from
Ptolemy, who would have put him to death as a meddlesome
and dangerous character, had not Theopompus been. protected

1 It is supposed that this expulsion took place in Ol. 100, 4; see Diodor. XV.
28.

2 This is stated, however, by the author of the Vite X. Oratorwm, p. 837 C.,
and by Photius, Cod. CCLX.

3 Phot. Cod. CLXXVI.; Quintil. X. 1; Dionys. Hal. ad. Pomp. p. 131.

4 A. Gellius, N. A. X. 18; Vit. X. Orat. p. 838 B; Euseb. Prep. Evang.
ws 2;
5 Phot. Cod. CCLX. & Strabo, p. 955.

|

THEOPOMPUS. 379

by the intervention of powerful friends.’ Ptolemy did not
assume the title of king till B.c. 306, and if the story that he
fled to king Ptolemy is to be understood as indicating a period
subsequent to this, Theopompus must have been very much
advanced in years when he finally left his native city. Of the
remainder of his life, and of his death, which probably followed
soon after this banishment, we have no account.

The works of Theopompus, which are all lost, were chiefly
historical, and we are informed that he had devoted a con-
siderable part of his ample fortune towards procuring accurate
information in regard to the particulars which he commemo-
rated. His diligence and trustworthiness are attested by many
of the ancient critics,’ and his style is said to have been lucid,
ornate, and elegant, though deficient in vigour.’ His greatest
fault, according to the ancient writers, was attributable to the
vehemence of his temper. They intimate that neither in praise
nor in vituperation could he keep his language within due bounds.
And he has been classed with Timzeus as conspicuously given
to defamation.* On the other hand he has been defended by
an eminent modern scholar, who says :° ‘ Theopompus has been
described as censorious for having painted from the life the
dissolute manners of a corrupt age; for most people are in-
clined to look at every thing on its fairest side, especially if
they view it from a distance, when all the passions are silent, and
the benevolent feeling which is implanted in the heart of man
is not contradicted by immediate and personal experience ; but
honour is due to the historian who knows how to distinguish
the covering from the surface, and, like the judge of the
infernal regions, drags the soul before his judgment-seat, naked
and stripped of all pomp and pageantry.’

1 Phot. Cod. CLXXVI.: Πτολεμαῖον δὲ οὐ προσίεσθαι τὸν ἄνδρα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡς
πολυπράγμονα ἀνελεῖν ἐθελῆσαι, εἰ μή τινες τῶν φίλων παραιτησάμενοι διεσώσαντο.

2 Athenzus, III. 18 ; Suidas, 5. ν. Ἔφορος.

8 Dionys. Hal. Epist. ad Pomp., p. 132: καθαρὰ ἡ λέξις καὶ κοινὴ καὶ σαφής,
ὑψηλή τε καὶ μεγαλοπρεπὴς καὶ τὸ πομπικὸν ἔχουσα πολύ, συγκειμένη τε κατὰ τὴν
μέσην ἁρμονίαν, ἡδέως καὶ μαλακῶς ῥέουσα.

* Corn. Nepos. Alcib. c. 11 ; Clem. Alex. Strom. I. p. 316; Lucian, Quomodo
hist. consevib. c. 59. Polyb. VIII. 12 ; Athenzus VI. p. 254 PB.

5 Béckh, Public Economy of Athens, book II. chapter XXIV. p. 293,
Eng. Tr.

3880 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

The following is the list of his writings.

(1) An abridgment of Herodotus (ἐπιτομὴ τῶν Ἡροδότου
ἱστοριῶν, which certain modern scholars’ have attributed to
some later writer.

(II.) A History of Greece in twelve books, in continuation
of Thucydides (Σύνταξις Ἑλληνικῶν), which contained a period
of seventeen years from the battle of Cynossema to that of
Cnidus. Of this work very few fragments remain.’

(III.) His history specially so called (Ioropiat κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν),
also designated as his Philippica (Φιλιππικά), which in fifty-
eight books contained an elaborate history of Philip of Macedon,
with frequent digressions, recounting the contemporary events
in different countries.* The first book gave the earlier years of
Philip; the second, his Illyrian, Peeonian, and Thracian wars ;
the third book discussed the war with Amphipolis, and took
occasion to digress into the history of Sesostris and the
Scythians ; in the eighth book he described the social war, with
many digressions on wonderful occurrences of various kinds ;
the ninth gave Philip’s Thessalian campaign, with much sup-
plementary information about the scene of action; the tenth
prepared the way for the war between Philip and the Athenians,
by an account of the early history of Attica and of the old
Athenian statesmen ; the eleventh book probably brought down
the history of Philip to his attempt on Thermopyle in B.c. 352 ;
books 12 to 18 seem to have contained an account of the wars
waged by the Persians against Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Egypt ;
the nineteenth and twentieth books returned to the affairs of
Philip, with especial reference to his dealings with Thessaly and
Thrace ; in the twenty-first book there was a discussion about
Dionysius and the affairs of Sicily, and this subject was renewed
in the thirty-ninth, fortieth, and forty-first books; in books
22—38, 42—51, the history of Philip was carried down to the
battle of Chzeroneia, which was described in book 53; the
fifty-second book contained the expedition of Archidamus in
aid of the Tarentines; and the remainder of the work com-

1 E. g. Vossius (De Hist. Gr. p. 16, 31.)

2 In the eleventh book he borrowed Xenophon’s lively account of the interview
between Agesilaus and Pharnabazus (Apollonius apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. p. 465).

8 Diodor. XVI. 3, Phot. Cod. CLXXYVI,

1
[

THEOPOMPUS. 3881

pleted the history of Philip down to his death.' From this
sketch of the contents, we may see that the Philippica of
Theopompus was a very miscellaneous compilation, not much
distinguished by method or unity of purpose. It has been
supposed that this work, together with the twelve books of the
Syntazxis, made up a continuous history in seventy books ;? but
this view has been sufficiently refuted by Mr. Fynes Clinton.’
The digressions, which formed so large a part of the book, were
omitted at an early period by those who were chiefly interested
in the history of the king of Macedon; and Philip III. in this
way reduced the number of books from fifty-eight to sixteen.’
In the time of Photius, however—that is, in the ninth century
of our wra—there were still extant all the fifty-eight books,
except the sixth, seventh, ninth, twentieth, and thirtieth; and
the same five books in all probability were wanting in the time
of Diodorus Siculus. Of the original extent of this work and
the Syntaxis we may form some idea from the statement of
Photius, on the authority of Theopompus himself, that the two
together contained 150,000 lines.’

(IV.) Orations, chiefly Panegyrical and Deliberative, in-
cluding, besides the eulogium on Mausolus, the panegyrics on
Philip and Alexander, and the address to Alexander on the
affairs of Chios. :

(V.) An attack on Plato (κατὰ Πλάτωνος διατριβή).

(VI.) On religiousness (περὶ εὐσεβείας). It is supposed that
these two may have been extracts from his great work on
Philip.

1 There is a full analysis of the Philippica of Theopompus, as far as the frag-
ments supply the necessary data, in Miiller’s Pragm. Hist. Gr. pp. LXX.—LX XIII.

2 Suidas, 5. v. Θεόπομπος. 8 Fasti Hellenici II., pp. 374, 375+

4 Phot. Cod .CLXXVI.: πλείσταις μὲν οὖν παρεκβάσεσι παντοδαπῆς ἱστορίας τοὺς
ἱστορικοὺς αὐτοῦ λόγους Θέοπομπος παρατείνει. διὸ καὶ Φίλιππος ὁ πρὸς Ῥωμαίους
πολεμήσας ἐξελὼν ταύτας καὶ τὰς Φιλίππου συνταξάμενος πράξεις at σκοπός εἶσι Θεο-
πόμπῳ εἰς ἑκκαίδεκα βίβλους μόνας μηδὲν παρ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ προσθεὶς ἢ ἀφελὼν πλὴν ὡς
εἴρηται τῶν παρεκτροπῶν, τὰς πάσας ἀπήρτισεν.

5 Phot. ibid.: οὐκ ἐλαττόνων μὲν ἢ δισμυρίων ἐπῶν τοὺς ἐπιδεικτικοὺς τῶν λόγων
συγγραψαμένῳ πλείους δὲ ἢ πεντεκαίδεκα μυριάδας ἐν οἷς τάς τε τῶν Ἑβλλήνων καὶ
βαρβάρων πράξεις μέχρι νῦν ἀπαγγελλομένας ἔστι λαβεῖν.

§ Miiller, u. s., p. LXXIII. Ruhnken (Hist. Cr. Gr. Or. p. 371) conjectured
that, in the case of No. VI. the name of Theopompus has been substituted for that
of Theophrastus, who wrote a book περὶ εὐσεβείας (Diog. Laért. V. p. 126).

382 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

Anaximenes published a work entitled Τρικάρανος or Tpuro-

λιτικός,, under the name of Theopompus, in order to injure the
character of the rival rhetorician.

§ 4. The Sicilian School of Corax, Tisias, and Gorgias, of
which Isocrates may be regarded as the Attic representative,’
gave rise to an historical school of its own, the most important
member of which, Philistus, was a contemporary of the Athenian
rhetorician. At one time, indeed, it was a common opinion
that Philistus had been, like Ephorus and Theopompus, a pupil
of Isocrates. This belief was derived from a passage in Cicero,
where Theopompus, Ephorus, Philistus, and Naucrates, are
mentioned together as having proceeded from the school of
Isocrates, just as the Greek captains came forth from the
wooden horse at Troy.“ But as Cicero himself, in another
passage of the same work, seems to distinguish between
Philistus and the scholars of Isocrates,’ it has been judiciously
suggested’ that we ought to read Philiscus instead of Philistus
in the former reference to the Isocratean historians. For there
was a Philiscus of Miletus among the scholars of Isocrates, and
he, though not himself an eminent historian, was the teacher of
Timeus, a later historian of the same school as Philistus; and
in two separate notices Suidas has confounded the two writers.’
It is also interesting to observe, with reference to the notice in
Cicero, who immediately after Philiscus mentions the eminent

rhetorician Naucrates, the competitor with Theopompus for the

1 Pausan. VI. 18. The three cities referred to were Athens, Sparta, and Thebes.

2 Above, ch. XXXII. § 3. 3 Above, ch. XXXVI. § 1.

4 De Oratore, II. 23, 94: ‘itaque et illi Theopompi, Ephori, Philisti, Naucrate,
multique alii naturis differunt.’

5 Ibid. II. 13, 57: ‘ hunc consecutus est Syracusius Philistus, qui, quum Dionysii
tyranni familiarissimus esset, otium suum consumpsit in historia scribend&, maxi-
meque Thucydidem est, sicut mihi videtur, imitatus. Postea vero, quasi ex
clarissim4& rhetoris officinaé duo prestantes ingenio, Theopompus et Ephorus, ab
Tsocrate magistro impulsi, se ad historiam contulerunt.’

6 By Giller, De situ Syracusarwm, pp. 1o8—118.

7 The following are the corresponding parts of the two notices in Suidas :—

Φιλίσκος } Φίλιστος, Συρακούσιος, Φίλιστος Ναυκρατίτης ἢ Συρακούσιος,

ἱστορικός. ἣν δὲ συγγενὴς Διονυσίου τοῦ ᾿Αρχωνίδου vids, μαθητὴς δὲ ἣν Ἑὐήνου

τυράννου Σικελίας καὶ ἐν τῇ πρὸς τοὺς τοῦ ἐλεγειοποιοῦ ὃς πρῶτος κατὰ ῥητορι-
Καρχηδονίους ναυμαχίᾳ ἐτελεύτησε. μα- κὴῚν τέχνην ἱστορίαν ἔγραψε.
θητὴς δὲ ἣν Εὐήνου τοῦ ἐλεγειοποιοῦ.

ee ea 1 Δ... Δ.

ANTIOCHUS. 383

Mausolean prize, that Suidas not only seems to interchange
‘ Naucrates the Erythrean’ with ‘ Erythrzeus the Naucratite,’?
but really says of Philistus that he was ‘either a Naucratite or
a Syracusan, having no doubt found Philiscus and Naucrates
mentioned together, as Cicero mentions them, among the
scholars of Isocrates. Admitting, then, the connexion between
Tsocrates and the rhetoricians of Sicily, and between his pupil
Philiscus and Timzeus, we must consider the Sicilian historians
Antiochus and Philistus as belonging to a manifestation of
Greek historiography, which stands entirely by itself.

Of Antiocnus we have very scanty remains, and the loss of
his writings is much to be deplored, for it cannot be doubted
that he was well acquainted with the traditions of his own
eountry and Italy, and that he gave many details, which are
now transmitted to us, if at all, in merely a secondary form.
For example, the particulars into which Thucydides enters at
the beginning of his sixth book are most probably derived from
Antiochus, and to the same source Aristotle was indebted for
his references to Sicilian history.” How far Diodorus has
copied or abridged Antiochus cannot be determined; but he
sometimes quotes him by name.* The Syracusan historian
was also one of the authorities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus*
and Strabo,’ and he is quoted by a late writer for the curious
statement that Rome was founded before the Trojan war in the
time of King Morges, the successor of Italus, and the mythical
representative of the Sicilian Morgetes.° We know nothing
about Antiochus, except that he was the son of Xenophanes of
Syracuse; that although of Dorian extraction, like Herodotus,
he followed the old fashion and wrote in the Ionic dialect ;? and

1 Suidas, 5, v. ᾿Ισοκράτης : οὗτος καὶ Θεοδέκτῃ καὶ Θεοπόμπῳ ἅμα τῷ ’EpvOpaly
Ναυκρατίτῃ διηγωνίσατο ; οἷ. 5. ν. Θεοδέκτης : οὗτος καὶ ὁ Ἔρυθραῖος Ναυκράτης. It is
clear from the position of the article that we have only an error of the copyist in
the former passage.

3 Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, vol. I. pp. 16, 17, Engl. Tr.

% e.g. XIL 7x. 41, 4o. et al. 5 p. 391. et al.

- δ Syneell. p. 364, Dind.: ᾿Αντίοχος δὲ ὁ Συρακόσιος καὶ πρὸ Τρωικῶν φησὶ τὴν
“Ῥώμην ἔκτισθαι βασιλεύοντος Μόργητος ᾿Ιταλίας ἀπὸ Τάραντος ἄχρι ἸΠοσειδωνίας
μετὰ τὸν πρῶτον λεγόμενον Ἴταλον βασιλέα καταγεγηρακότα.

7 The commencement of his work is thus cited by Dionysius, I. 12: ᾿Αντίοχος
Ξιενοφάνεος τάδε συνέγραψε περὶ Ἰταλίας ἐκ τῶν ἀρχαίων λόγων τὰ πιστότατα Kal
σαφέστατα. τὴν γῆν ταύτην, ἥτις νῦν ᾿Ιταλία καλεῖται, τὸ παλαιὸν εἶχον Οἰνωτροί.

884 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

that his Sicilian history, which was comprised in nine books,
was carried down to the year 423 B.C.’

§ 5. Like Thucydides, whom he selected as his model,
Puizistus was a man of consideration in his own country, and
took an active part in public affairs. The year of his birth is
not stated, and it is even uncertain whether his father’s name
was Archonides, as Suidas says,’ or Archimenides, as Pausanias®
tells us. As he was a very old man at the time of his death,
in B.c. 556,‘ as he had been an eye-witness of the arrival of
Gylippus at Syracuse in B.c. 415,7 and made a prominent public
appearance in B.c. 406,° he was probably born not later than
the commencement of the Peloponnesian war in B.c. 432. His
apparent connexion with Hermocrates, who, aided by Gylippus,
had enabled his countrymen to repel triumphantly the formid-
able invasion of the Athenians, led him to espouse the cause of
Dionysius, when that daring adventurer came forward as the
representative and successor of the anti-popular chieftain.
When the conduct of the Syracusan generals at Agrigentum, in
B.c. 406, excited the bitter indignation of their fellow-citizens,
and Dionysius was fined for the intemperance with which he
attacked them in the assembly, Philistus at once paid the fine,
and urged Dionysius to pursue his invectives in the same strain,
promising to meet all the penalties which might be imposed
upon him.’ Having thus contributed not only to the restora-
tion of the Hermocratean party, but also to the establishment
of Dionysius as despotical ruler of Syracuse, Philistus naturally
occupied a prominent place in the new administration of affairs.
For a long time he was the confidential friend and lieutenant of
the tyrant, insomuch that he was intrusted with the command
of the citadel, on which the safety of Dionysius depended. At
length, however, he excited the jealousy of that ruler by
privately marrying one of the two daughters of his brother

1 Diod. u.s.; Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, p. 69.

2 See above, p. 382 [222], note 7. 3 X. 23.

4 Plut. Dion. c. 35. 5 Id. Nic. c. 19.

6 Diod. XIII. gt.

7 Diodorus, XIII. 91: τῶν δ᾽ ἀρχόντων ζημιόύντων τὸν Διονύσιον κατὰ τοὺς
νόμους ὡς θορυβοῦντα, Φίλιστος ὁ τὰς ἱστορίας ὕστερον συγγράψας οὐσίαν ἔχων μεγά-
λην ἐξέτισε τὰ πρόστιμα, καί τῷ Διονυσίῳ παρεκελεύετο λέγειν ὅσα προῃρεῖτο,
K.T.A.

PHILISTUS 385

Leptines, and was in consequence banished from Syracuse
about B.c. 386.' He settled first at Thurii, for so many years
the residence of Herodotus, and afterwards removed to Adria.
Here his enforced leisure furnished to him, as it had done to
Thucydides, the opportunity and the inducement to compose
his historical work. At the same time he continually endea-
youred to procure his recal from exile, and sometimes, it is
said, had recourse to flatteries unworthy of his character, in the
hope of inducing Dionysius to relent.? But as long as the
elder tyrant lived, he pleaded in vain. On the accession of the
younger Dionysius in B.c. 367, a cabal was formed against
Dion and his friend Plato, and, to counterbalance their influence,
Philistus was invited to Syracuse. Here he resumed all his
authority, and became the chief minister of the tyrant, whom
he induced to dismiss Plato, and banish Dion. Till the year
B.C. 357, he enjoyed a position at Syracuse scarcely second to
that of Dionysius himself, and by his military experience and
vigorous character sustained that feeble despot on his throne.
Unfortunately for him and Dionysius, Dion did not take the
usual course when he sailed from Zacynthus to Sicily ;
Philistus, who was waiting to intercept him in the waters of
Tarentum, had no opportunity of meeting him at sea, and
Dionysius had foolishly absented himself from the capital, so
that Dion was enabled to possess himself of Achradina and a
great part of Syracuse; and Heracleides having come with a
fleet to his assistance, all the hopes of the dynasty were centred

1 Diodorus merely says (XV. 7), that Philistus and Leptines were among the
number of his friends whom Dionysius was led ἐπὶ ψεύδεσιν αἰτίαις ἀνελεῖν, He
implies, too, that Philistus and Leptines were both reconciled to the elder Diony-
sius and restored to his favour. But Plutarch, in his life of Dion (c. 11), distinctly
says, that Philistus was banished because Leptines had ‘given him one of his
daughters in marriage μηδὲ φράσας πρὸς Διονύσιον ; that Dionysius imprisoned his
niece, and banished his old supporter, who did not return τοῦ πρεσβυτέρου ζῶντος.
Tt is also clear, from what Philistus said of his wife’s degradation (apud Plut.
Timol. 15), that Leptines also must have remained a long time in banishment,

2 Pausan. I. 13, ὃ 9.

8 Corn. Nepos, Dion, 3: ‘quumque Dion non desineret obsecrare Dionysium,
ut Platonem Athenis arcesseret et ejus consiliis uteretur, ille, qui in aliqua re
vellet patrem imitari, Philistum historicum Syracusas reduxit, hominem amicum
non magis tyranno quam tyrannidi.’ Plutarch (Dion, 36), says, that Philistus was
φιλοτυραννότατος ἀνθρώπων.

Vou. II. ¢ ¢

386 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

in Philistus, who, after undertaking an expedition against the
revolted Leontini, and after several skirmishes with the enemy
at Syracuse, engaged Heracleides in the great harbour, was de-
feated, and had his ship driven ashore.’ To escape imprisonment,
he stabbed himself; but the wound was not mortal, and he
fell into the hands of the enemy, who stripped him, and, after
insulting him, cut off his head, dragged him by the leg through
the streets of Syracuse, and finally flung his body into the
Latomiz.” Such was the miserable end of this courageous and
energetic supporter of the Sicilian usurpers. As he was nearly
eighty years old, he could not have engaged in active life for
many years longer, and if he had escaped with his life from
the troubles of the counter-revolution, he must have encoun-
tered again the banishment which he bore with so much impa-
tience. Mr. Grote has well remarked* that ‘ the last hopes of
the Dionysian dynasty perished with Philistus, the ablest and
most faithful of its servants. He had been an actor in its first
day of usurpation—its eighteenth Brumaire: his timely, though
miserable, death, saved him from sharing in its last day of
exile—its St. Helena.’

In his confused and blundering notice of Philistus, the
lexicographer Suidas mentions a number of works which must, in
all probability, be divided between him, Philiscus, Naucrates, and
perhaps several other writers.“ There is no reason to believe
that he wrote anything himself, except the great Sicilian history,
on which his literary reputation depends. This was divided
into two distinct portions. The first part, in seven books,
comprised the history from the earliest times to the capture of
Agrigentum, in B.c. 406, a period of more than 800 years. The
second part, in four books, contained the history of the reign of

1 Diodor. XVI. 9-11, 16; Plutarch, Dion, 25, 35. σι Steph. ΒυΖ. s.v. Δύμη
from the fortieth book of Phécpoitpta:

2 According to Plutarch, Dion, 35, Ephorus stated ὡς ἁλισκομένης τῆς νεὼς
ἑαυτὸν ἀνέλοι, but Timonides, an eye-witness, gave the account which is repeated
in the text.

5. XT. Ὁ, 130.

4 Of the works which Suidas attributes to Philistus, it may be concluded that
the τέχνη ῥητορική and δημηγορίαι should be assigned to Philiscus, who was also, —
perhaps, the author of the reply to the Ἰϊρικάρανος of Anaximenes. The treatise
περὶ Φοινίκης was probably written by Philinus of Agrigentum, who fiourished in
the time of the first Punic war.

PHILISTUS. 387

the elder Dionysius. In a supplement of two books he nar-
rated the events of the first five years of Dionysius the younger,
thus carrying down his contemporary memoirs to within seven
years of his death. The remainder of the reign of Dionysius
the younger was written by Arnanis' of Syracuse.

_ The contents of the eleven books, which Philistus wrote
before he returned from exile, are thus assigned by a modern
scholar :°-—The first book contained the history of Cocalus ;* the
second described the foundation of the various Greek colonies ;*
the third carried down the history to the times of Gelo;* the
fourth probably contained the reigns of Thero and Thrasybulus ;°
the fifth comprised the most flourishing period of Sicily, after
the expulsion of the tyrants ;’ the sixth following closely in the
steps of Thucydides*® narrated the war with Athens; the seventh
was devoted to the legislation of Diocles and the wars with the
Carthaginians ;° the eighth book described the rise of Dionysius
and his operations against Carthage ;” the ninth the establish-
ment of the tyranny and the peace with the Carthaginians ;”
the tenth the second Carthaginian war ;” and the eleventh the
third war with Carthage, that with Rhegium, and the death
and funeral of Dionysius the elder.”

All the ancient critics are agreed that Philistus was an
imitator of Thucydides, and was very inferior to his model."
The attempt, however, to rival the Attic historian led at least
to one consequence, the adoption of the Attic dialect, which
was becoming more and more the literary language of Greece.
It may be inferred from several circumstances that the literary
talents of Philistus were not eminent, and that his merits con-

1 This seems to be the true spelling of the name, which is sometimes corrupted
into “Adavs, ᾿Αθάνης, ᾿Αθάνας. Cf. Diod. XV. 94; Plut. Timol. ec. 23, 37;
Athen. IIT. 98 D; and see Creuzer, Histor. Kunst. d. Griechen, 2nd ed. p. 308,

2 Goller, De situ Syracusarum, pp. 125-132.

3 Diod. V. 2-6. 4 Strabo, VI. p. 409.

5 Diod. IX. § Id. XI, 38-68.

7 Id, XI. 67, 68 ; ΧΤΙ. 82.

8 Theo, Progymn. p. 9: τὸν ᾿Αττικὸν ὅλον πόλεμον “ἐν τοῖς Σικελικοῖς ἐκ τοῦ
Θουκυδίδου μετενήνοχε. Cf. Plut. Nic. c. 1.

9 Diod. XIII. 34-96. 10 Td. ibid. 91-108,

ἢ Jd. ibid. 108 ; XIV. το. 12 74, XIV. 14-76,

1S Td. XIV. 76; XV. 74.

14 Quintil. X. 1; Dionys. Hal. vol. V. p. 427; VI. p. 779 sqq.

Ce 2’

388 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

sisted in the accuracy of his facts, and in the soundness of his
practical judgment, rather than in the form or style of his
narratives. These last qualities he must have possessed in a
considerable degree, for Cicero not only calls him ‘a miniature
Thucydides,’ but designates him by epithets which, if they do
not all convey definite ideas, are at least significant of no little
praise ;' and the history of Philistus was included in the select
list of books which Harpalus sent to Alexander the Great while
he was in Asia2 On the other hand, we are told that his
works were neglected at an early period,*® and perhaps were not
finally included in the Alexandrian canon ;* that his narratives,
and the speeches introduced into his history, were dull and
monotonous; and that he did not diversify the regular parade
of his facts by any of those amusing digressions which were
found in the histories of his predecessors and contemporaries.’
The compilations of Diodorus, however, cannot stand in the place
of authentic contemporary history like that of Philistus, and we
must, therefore, regret that the rhetorical fancies of the Alex-
andrian school have prevented us from possessing at least the
latter half of his Sicilian annals.

§ 6. By the side of the rhetorical historians, who made
the narration of events an excuse for displaying their skill in
the construction of periods, a different class of writers sprung
up, whose object it was rather to preserve and exhibit the
authentic materials of history, namely, the old traditions which
were interwoven with the social and political usages of a nation,
and the documents contained in inscriptions and other records.
These monographies, or special treatises on history and an-
tiquities, were generally confined to the discussion of the affairs

1 Cicero says (ad Quint, fr. IL 13): ‘itaque ad Callisthenem et ad Philistum
redeo, in quibus te video volutatum. Callisthenes quidem vulgare et notum ne-
gotium, quemadmodum Greci aliquot locuti sunt. Siculus ille capitalis, creber,
acutus, brevis, peene pusillus Thucydides.’ The meaning of this passage is fully
discussed by Muretus (var. lect. II. 5) who shows, against Ρ, Manutius, that capi- —
talis is a synonym for ingeniosus, See also Creuzer, wu. 8. p. 310.

2 Plut. Alex. c. 8, 8 Cicero, Brut. 6. 17.

4 C, Miller (Fr. Hist. Gr. p. XLIX.) expressly states—‘ Philistus in Alexan-
drinum historicorum canonem non est receptus.’ On the other hand, Creuzer (u. 8.
p- 304) says: ‘was nun den Philistos betrifft, so gehirt er allerdings unter die
kanonischen Historiker.’

5 Theo, Progymn. p. 44:

THE ATTHIDES. 389

of Attica, and every one of the writers of this class composed
an Atthis (Ar@ic),—an adjective which denotes ‘an Attic
history’ (Aric συγγραφή). This was the name which, at a
later period, Pausanias gave to the particular section of his
Periegesis in which he treated of Attica, and it is supposed
that the Atthis of Melesagoras, or Amelesagoras of Chalcedon,
was a similar compilation, by a writer of the Alexandrian
school, from the older works of which we are now speaking.’
These older Atthides may be compared with works like those
of John Stow, William Camden, and Sir William Dugdale, and
the modern county histories which have.succeeded them. The
nature of the original Atthides has been described and imitated
by ancient and modern writers. Dionysius of Halicarnassus
says that he has not endeavoured to give his work a form ‘like
those mere annals, which the writers of the Atthides have
elaborated, for these are very monotonous, and soon offend the
hearers.’? Niebuhr thought that the writers of the Afthides,
‘who wrote the history of the oldest times diplomatically, with
reference to laws and public decrees, and in chronological order,’
would have been of inestimable value to us.* And C. O.
Miiller considered Béckh’s Public Economy of Athens as a
specimen of ‘ what an Afthis would be, according to the style
of the old writers of the Atthides, who treated as an essential
part of history all that is most important in political and
religious antiquities, if it were carried out with the enlarged
views and comprehensive learning of modern times.’ *

Of these special chroniclers and antiquaries, eight are known to
us by name—Cleidemus or Cleitodemus,’ Phanodemus, Demon,
Androtion, Philochorus, Ister, Andron, and Melanthius. The
last two are merely cited once or twice, and we know nothing
about them. The other six have left fragments more or less

1 Miiller, Fr. Hist. Gr. p. LX Χ ΧΤ,

2 Antig. Rom. I. 8, p. 23, Reiske: σχῆμα δὲ ἀποδίδωμι τῇ mpayuarela....
οὔτε Tats χρονικαῖς παραπλήσιον ἃς ἐξέδωκαν οἱ ras ᾿Ατθίδας πραγματευόμενοι" μονοει-
δεῖς γὰρ ἐκεῖναί τε καὶ ταχὺ προσιστάμεναι τοῖς ἀκούουσιν.

3 Kleine Schriften, I. p. 225.

* Orchomenos und die Minyer, p. 13.

5 Both names occur, and are both represented under the corrupt readings καὶ
Δῆμος and καὶ ὁ Δῆμος, which appear in citations from this writer ; but the balance
of authority is rather in favour of the shorter form.

890 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

numerous in the works of ancient historians, scholiasts, and
lexicographers.

Ciripemus, the most ancient writer of an Althis, was a
native of Athens,’ and seems to have been a contemporary of
Isocrates and Plato. We learn at least that he spoke as an
eye-witness of the expedition to Sicily,’ and that his Althis
referred in the third book to the Symmorie at Athens,’ which
were not instituted till the archonship of Nausinicus, in 8.0,
378, the year of the death of Lysias. It does not, however,
result from this that the whole work was first published after
the year of Nausinicus. If we adopt the reasonable inference
that the book called Protogony (Ipwroyovia) was really the
first part of the Atthis,* which in its complete form consisted of
at least twelve books,’ we may conclude that this at least was
published by itself, and probably at an earlier period. We are
almost disposed to think that Plato, in his Phedrus, makes a
direct reference to the first book of this Protogony, or first
part of the Aithis, of Cleidemus.° If so, and if, as we have
suggested, the Phedrus was published soon after Plato’s
ransom from bondage in 8.0. 387,’ the Protogony was a new
book about that time. Besides his Atthis, Cleidemus is said
to have written an ‘ Exposition’ or ‘ Rationale’ (᾿Εξηγητικόν),
in verse, of the old customs of the Athenians, and a book

1 He is mentioned among Athenians only in Plutarch De glor. Athen. II. p. 345,
and he is quoted for the word πρύξ, which is said to occur only in Attic writers.
Harpocr. 8. v. Πνυκί,

2 Pausan. X. 15.

3 Photius s. v. Navxpapla. The writer of the article Cleidemus, in Smith’s
Dictionary of Biography, &c., I. p. 782, says: ‘We cannot fix the exact period at
which Cleidemus flourished, but it must have been subsequently to Β.0, 479, since
Plutarch refers to his account of the battle of Platea (Plut. Arist. 19)!’ :

* Creuzer (Hist. kunst. d. Gr. p. 353) says: ‘Protogonia, héchst wahrscheinlich
keine besondere Schrift, sondern das erste Buch der Atthis.’ But there were three
books of the Protogony (Harpocr. s. v. IIvux(), and it is in the third book of the
Atthis that we find the reference to the Symmorie. We presume then that the
Protogony in three books was published first, and that additions were made when
the work was completed at a subsequent period.

5 Hesych.’Ayaueuvévera φρέατα. Κλείδημος ἐν τῇ ιβ' τῆς ᾿Ατθίδος.

6 Cleidemus is quoted in the first book of his Atthis (Pausan. Grammat. ap,
Bekker. Anecd. p. 326 sq.) for some information about the site mentioned in the
Phedrus, p. 229 0.

7 Above, ch, XXXIX, § 6, p. 221 [61].

PHANODEMUS, DEMON, ANDROTION. 391

called ‘The Returns’ (Νόστοι), in which the vicissitudes of
Peisistratus were narrated at length. There can be little
doubt that Cleidemus was a careful and accurate antiquarian.
He is praised by Plutarch for the originality and ingenuity
with which he treated the old legends, and the same writer
attributes to him the wish to investigate every particular with
the minutest diligence. We can recognize these qualities in
the fragments which have come down to us, and can discern
in him that faculty of reconstructive rationalism which traces
the foundation of fact under the most elaborate superstructure
of mythology.

Puanopemvus, who was probably a native of Icus, one of the
Cyclades, seems to have been a contemporary of Theopompus,
who is said to have written against him.’ Besides an Aéthis
in at least nine books,’ he wrote special treatises on the islands
of Delos (Δηλιακά) and Icus (Ἰκιακά). We infer from the
references to him that he was distinguished by considerable
learning and critical acuteness. In giving an account of
Cimon’s victory in Cyprus, he estimates the Persian fleet at
600 ships instead of 350, the number given by Ephorus ;* but
this does not prove, as has been rather hastily assumed,* that he
was guilty of patriotic exaggeration.

Demon was a contemporary of Philochorus, who wrote his
own Aithis to correct or oppose that of Demon.’ This author
does not seem to have enjoyed much reputation for judgment,
_and even his good faith has been doubted. For example, what
he says about the oracular kettles at Dodona® is regarded as
a wilful fable.” Demon’s AZthis was at least in four books,®
and the few fragments which remain are chiefly references to
mythology and religious observances. Besides the Atthis, he
wrote a book on Proverbs (περὶ παροιμιῶν) and another on
Sacrifices (περὶ θυσιῶν).

It seems to be an almost general opinion that ANpRoTIoN,
the writer of the Atthis, was not the same person as the orator

1 Proclus ad Platonis Timeum, p. 30.

® The ninth book is quoted by Harpocration, 5. v. Λεωκόρειον.

3 Plut. Cimon, 12. 4 By Miiller, p. LX XX VII.

5 Harpocration, 5. ν. ᾿Ηετιωνία, 6. Fragm. 17, 18.

7 Miller, p, LXXXVII. 8 Δήμων ἐν τετάρτῳ Ατθίδος. Athen. p..96 D.

392 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

of that name, for whose impeachment Demosthenes wrote an
oration.’ But the biography of Isocrates’ identifies the orator
with the historian, and the school of Isocrates, to which the
orator Androtion belonged, was also, as we have seen, a school
for historical writers. And not only is there no antecedent
improbability in this identification, but it tends to explain the
fact mentioned by Plutarch, that among the eminent writers
who composed their histories in exile, Androtion, the Athenian,
wrote his at Megara.’ For, from the writers mentioned along
with him, we should infer that Androtion the historian was a
man of some political eminence, like the pupil of Isocrates, to
whom Demosthenes was opposed. If he was the same person,
we have a very unfavourable record of his character and con-
duct in the speeches of Demosthenes against him and his par-
tizan Timocrates. The Atthis of Androtion, which comprised at
least twelve books,‘ and was carried down to the 96th Olympiad,’
if not to a later year, did not differ in kind from the other
works of this class. He is classed with Philochorus as having
written very completely (ἐντελέστατα) about the municipal
scrutinies (διαψηφίσεις)." His authority is cited doubtfully by
fflian’ and Pausanias,* and he indulges in speculative mythology
like the rest of his school. It appears that he arranged his
history according to the archons at Athens.’

PuitocHorvs, who was perhaps the most eminent writer of
his class, was a native of Athens,” and took an active part in
the political affairs of that city from B.c. 306, when, in his

1 Above, ch. XLI. § 3. 2 p. XI. Dindorf.

3 De Exilio, p. 605 C, Ὁ. p. 439 Wyttenb.: καὶ γὰρ τοῖς παλαιοῖς ὡς ἔοικεν αἱ
Μοῦσαι τὰ κάλλιστα τῶν συνταγμάτων Kal δοκιμώτατα φυγὴν λαβοῦσαι συνεργὸν
ἐπετέλεσαν. And after mentioning that Thucydides of Athens wrote his history
at Scaptesyle, Xenophon at Scillus, Philistus in Epirus, Timeus at Athens, he
adds: ᾿Ανδροτίων ᾿Αθηναῖος ἐν Μεγάροις.

4 ws ᾿Ανδροτίων ἐν δωδεκάτῃ Ατθίδοςς. Harpocr. 5. v. ᾿Αμφίπολις.

5 He is quoted by Harpocration, 5. v. Ξενικὸν ἐν Κορίνθῳ, for a fact which is
referred to Ol. 96, 3.

6 Harpocr. s. v. διαψηφίσεις.

7 V.H. VIII. 6: ταῦτα ᾿Ανδροτίων λέγει, ef rw πιστός.

8 VI. 7: ef δὲ τὸν ὄντα εἶπεν ᾿Ανδροτίων λόγον.

9. Schol. Aristoph. Nubes, 540.

10 The notice in Suidas is; Φιλόχορος, Κ ύκνου, ᾿Αθηναῖος, μάντις καὶ ἱεροσκόπος.

PHILOCHORUS. 393

capacity as a public seer, he interpreted the appearance of a
dog in the Parthenon as indicating the return of the exiles,’
‘down to the year 8.0. 260, when Antigonus Gonatas took
possession of Athens, and had Philochorus put to death as an
adherent of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who had aided the city in
its opposition to the Macedonians? From these scanty par-
ticulars we can infer that Philochorus belonged to a priestly
family, that he was, as far as the times admitted, a zealous
patriot, directly opposed to the tyranny which Demetrius
Poliorcetes exercised under the cloak of freedom, and that he
fell a sacrifice to his anti-Macedonian efforts when Antigonus
Gonatas restored his father’s influence in the city.

We have a long list of the writings of Philochorus. They
were as follows :

(I.) His Atthis (Aric, also called ᾿Ατθίδες and ‘Ieropiat), a
history of Attica from the first beginnings of the human race
to the time of Antiochus Theus, in seventeen books.* The
first two books are devoted to mythology, and the explanation
of religious observances ; the next four carry down the history
to the author’s times, and Béckh has conjectured that these

first six books formed a separate work, published originally by
itself. The remaining eleven books are occupied with contem-
porary history. Philochorus enjoyed the highest reputation
for laborious accuracy and sound critical judgment, and the
numerous fragments, which are still extant, show that he

γυνὴ δὲ ἣν αὐτῷ ᾿Αρχεστράτη. κατὰ δὲ τοὺς χρόνους γέγονεν ὁ ᾧ. ᾿Ερατοσθένους ὡς
ἐπιβαλεῖν πρεσβυτῇ νέον ὄντα ᾿Ερατοσθένει. It is clear that this statement of the
relative ages of Philochorus and Eratosthenes must be wrong; for the event
referred to is the occupation of Athens by Antigonus Gonatas, in Β.0. 262, and
Eratosthenes died an old man in B.c. 196. It is, therefore, proposed to read in
Suidas; κατὰ τοὺς χρόνους yéy. ᾧ. ᾿Ερατοσθένους, ws ἐπιβαλεῖν πρεσβύτῃ νεανίαν or
νέον ὄντα ᾿Ερατοσθένην.

. 7 Apud Dionys. Hal. De Dinarcho judicium, p. 637, Reiske: ἡμεῖς δ᾽ ἐρωτη-
θέντες ὑπέρ Te τοῦ σημεῖου Kal τοῦ φαντάσματος εἰς ὃ φέρει, φυγάδων κάθοδον ἔφαμεν
προσημαίνειν ἀμφότερα. . ,. καὶ τὴν κρίσιν ἐπιτελεσθῆναι συνέβη.

2 Suidas: ἐτελεύτησε δὲ ἐνιδρευθεὶς ὑπὸ ᾿Αντιγόνου ὅτι διεβλήθη προσκεκλικέναι
τῇ Πτολεμαίου βασιλείᾳ.

3 Τῇ Schol. Vict. ad Hom. Il. =. 370, we read: ἡ δὲ κατὰ Λίνον ἱστορία παρὰ
Φιλοχόρῳ ἱστορεῖται ἐν τῇ ιθ΄. But Béckh (De Philochoro, Berol. 1832), proposes
to read ἐν τῇ ᾿Ατθίδι. And this may be a reference to the treatise περὶ εὑρημάτων,
perhaps an appendix to the Atthis. .

394 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

spared no pains in the collection of his facts, and that he
expressed himself in elegant and unaffected language.

(II.) An abridgment of his Aéthis (ἐπιτομὴ τῆς ἰδίας ᾿Ατθίδος).
It may be doubted whether this is not the same book as the
epitome of Philochorus drawn up by Asinius Pollio of Tralles,
probably a learned freedman of the celebrated Roman of the
same name.’ Some have accounted for the existence of two
abridgments by supposing that one was made by Philochorus
himself for the use of his countrymen, the other by the later
Greek writer for the use of the Romans. But it seems to us
very unlikely that Philochorus would think it worth his while
to engage in a work, which would probably have superseded
his more elaborate book, as Justin’s epitome has superseded the
longer history of Trogus Pompeius; and it is clear that our
fragments are taken from the fullest form of the Atthis, which
must therefore have been in the hands of the comparatively
recent writers to whom we owe these citations. And, on the
whole, we are inclined to think that the only epitome was that

of Asinius Trallianus.

(III.) A confutation of the Atthis of Demon (πρὸς τὴν Δήμω-
νος ᾿Ατθίδα, or ἡ πρὸς Δήμωνα avTvypapn),” which was probably
criticism of the rival history, and not another name for the
elaborate Atihis of Philochorus.

(IV.) On the Athenian Archons from Socratides (B.c. 374) to
Apollodorus (B.c. 350 or B.c. 319, probably the latter) (περὶ
τῶν ᾿Αθήνησι ἀρξάντων ἀπὸ Σωκρατίδου μεχρὶ ᾿Απολλοδώρου).
This was, perhaps, one of the accessary labours of his Aéthis,
If it went down to the time of the later Apollodorus, it was
probably the introduction to the last eleven books, which were
devoted to his contemporary history, and may have followed
the publication of the six preceding books.’

(V.) On the Olympiads (Ὀλυμπιάδες ev βιβλίοις β΄). It
seems that Philochorus, who paid great attention to chronology,
was not satisfied with the dates as given by the years of the
Archons, but afterwards, perhaps following the example of

1 Suidas, ἸΤωλίων, ὁ ᾿Ασίνιος χρηματίσας, Τραλλιανός, σοφιστὴς καὶ φιλόσοφος"
σοφιστεύσας ἐν Ῥώμῃ ἐπὶ Πομπηΐου τοῦ μεγάλου καὶ διαδεξάμενος τὴν σχολὴν τοῦ
Τιμαγένους, ἔγραψεν ἐπιτομὴν τῆς Φιλοχόρου ᾿Ατθίδος, κ.τ.λ. “ἢ

2 Harpocration, s.v. ᾿ ετιωνία, 3 Miiller, p. LXXXIX, ~

ISTER. 395

Timeeus, investigated the succession of the Olympiads, and
published the results of his researches in these two books.’

(VI.) On the four cities, (ποθ, Marathon, Probalinthus, and
Trycorythus (περὶ τῆς τετραπόλεως), a monograph on the
mythology and religious observances of these places, which
may, after all, have been an extract from the first two eke
of his Atthis.?

(VII.) A collection of Attic inscriptions (ἐπιγράμματα ve
Tika), intended most probably as a documentary appendix to his
great work, and forming the first collection of the kind which
had appeared in Greece. From the nature of the case, it is not
probable that these were ‘ only poetical inscriptions,’ as Bockh
once supposed,* and as those of Polemo appear to have been. It
is more likely that they were decrees and treaties, and, as Bockh
now says, ‘ varii generis inscriptiones.’ *

The other sixteen titles of works attributed to Philochorus
refer to-publications, partly of an antiquarian description,’
partly belonging to his professional occupation as a priest and
soothsayer,’ partly treating of subjects of literary criticism and
biography.’ From this brief survey we can see that Philo-
chorus was a most important writer, and it is perhaps impos-
sible to estimate the amount of information which we have
received at second-hand from him.

_ To complete the list of these writers, we must mention IsTER,
who belongs, however, to the Alexandrian school. He was a
native of Cyrene, the slave and afterwards the friend of

1 Miiller, iid.; Creuzer, Histor. Kunst. p. 357.

2 We have a specimen of this book in Suidas, s.v. Tcravlda γῆν, where Attica is
said to have been the abode of Titenius, the only Titan who did not make war on
the Gods. ;

3 Public Economy of Athens, book II. c. 8, p. 197, Lewis’ Transl. Suidas says,
8.0. ἐπίγραμμα" πάντα τὰ ἐπιγραφόμενά τισι κἂν μὴ ἐν μέτροις εἰρημένα, ἐπιγράμ-
para λέγεται.

4 Corpus Inscript. pref. p. VIII.

5 As the six works, ᾿Ηπειρωτικά, Δηλιακά 6’, περὶ τῶν ᾿Αθήνησι ἀγώνων ιζ΄, περὶ
ἑορτῶν, περὶ ἡμερῶν, Σαλαμῖνος κτίσις.

6 As the six works, περὶ θυσιῶν, περὶ μαντικῆς 5’, περὶ καθαρμῶν, περὶ μυστηρίων
τῶν ᾿Αθήνησι, ἡ πρὸς "Αλυπον ἐπιστολή, ἐπιτομὴ τῆς Διονυσίου πραγματείας περὶ
ἱερῶν.

7 As the four treatises, περὲ ᾿Αλκμᾶνος, περὶ τῶν Σοφοκλέους μύθων βιβλία ἐ,
περὶ Εὐριπίδου, συναγωγὴ ἩἩρωΐδων ἤτοι ἸΤυθαγορείων γυναικῶν.

896 RHETORICAL HISTORIANS AND ANTIQUARIES.

Callimachus, whom he accompanied to Alexandria. He lived
there, or at Paphus in Cyprus, at that time part of the Egyptian
monarchy, in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, between B.c. 250
and 220. He was, like most of the Alexandrian writers, a
poet and grammarian, as well as a compiler of histories.
Besides an Afthis, in at least sixteen books,’ he wrote a variety
of works on local history, religious traditions, and literary
criticism. It was he who gave to the censorious Timzeus the
appropriate nickname ‘Eztriuatoc.2 He was himself severely
criticised by Polemo, the celebrated collector of inscriptions,*
who said that he deserved to be immerged in the great river
from which he derived his name.‘

1 Harpocration, s.v. Τραπεζοφόρος. 2 Atheneus, VI. p. 272 B.

3 He was called στηλοκόπης, ‘the tablet picker,’ and was ‘a sort of Old Mor-
tality, who used to go about copying the inscriptions on public monuments’
(Liddell and Scott, s.v.).

4 Athenzus, IX. p. 387 F: Πολέμων ὁ περιηγητὴς Ἴστρον τὸν Καλλιμάχειον
συγγραφέα els τὸν ὁμώνυμον κατεπόντου ποταμόν,

397

CHAPTER XLIV.

MEDICAL LITERATURE—WRITINGS ATTRIBUTED TO
HIPPOCRATES,

§ 1. Life of Hippocrates. § 2. Origin and growth of medical literature among the
Greeks. ὃ 3. Genuine works of Hippocrates. ὃ 4. Doubtful works. ὃ 5.
Spurious works. ὃ 6. Publication of the Hippocratic collection, ὃ 7. Style
and literary merits of Hippocrates.

δι, J) EFORE we take leave of the classical period, we must

go back to a contemporary of Socrates, who enjoys
a reputation not unlike that of Homer; for while he represents
acomplete department or school of Greek literature, his personal
existence is very shadowy and unsubstantial, and his claim to
the writings, which are attributed to him, must in many cases
be rejected, and in others admitted with no little doubt and
uncertainty." Among those who, with different objects, en-
deavoured to improve or acquire a rhetorical style by attending
the lectures of Gorgias, was Hrrrocratres, the son of
Heracleides and Phzenarete,’ the hereditary chief of a renowned
school of medicine, which had long been established in the
island of Cos. One at least of his predecessors, and some
three or four of his successors, bore the same name, and being
the most eminent of the family and school, he has perhaps been

1 The best modern authorities for the literary biography of Hippocrates, which
are known to us, are the elaborate introduction to E. Littiré’s ures Completes
@ Hippocrate, vol. I. Paris, 1839, and the excellent articles by Bahr, in Pauly’s
Real-Encyclopidie, vol. III. Stuttgart, 1844, and by Dr. Greenhill, in Smith’s
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II. Lond.
1854.

2 By one of those fortuitous coincidences, which amuse if they do not
instruct, the mother of Socrates, the father of later Greek philosophy, and
of Hippocrates, the founder of medical literature, bore the same name. Those
who believe that talent is inherited from the mother, and that mother-wit

is not an idle phrase, will perhaps think that both of the Phenarete’s justified
their name.

398 - MEDICAL LITERATURE.

made responsible for the actions and writings of the whole race.’
The contemporary references to him are very scanty, and only
sufficient to establish his existence, and we are left for all
details to a late biography attributed to Soranus—a name
belonging to many medical writers from the time of Trajan
downwards,’—and to a number of legends which have sprung
up in the various countries, where Hippocrates has been received
as the father of the art of healing.

The following particulars constitute the biography of the
great Hippocrates. He was born Ol. 80, 1. B.c. 460, on the
26th day of the month Agrianus, which the inhabitants of Cos
celebrated as his natal day.’ He claimed descent from the two
deities, who were regarded as the helpers and healers of man-
kind, being the nineteenth, or, as some say, the seventeenth,’
in the direct line from Aisculapius, the god of medicine in
general, and the twentieth from Hercules, the heroic cleanser of
infested neighbourhoods,’ the maker of roads,° and the patron

¥ The following table is given by Dr. Greenhill :—

Nebrus
|

a
Gnosidicus Chrysus

, |
|

Hippocrates I. Podaleirius ®neius Elaphus
Hippolochus,

Pheenarete = Hippocrates 11. Cadmus

Sosander Hrerocratess IT. = Uxor

| | |
Thessalus Filia = Polybus Dracon I.

| ;
| | Hippocrates IV.?
Gorgias Hippocrates ITT, Dracon IT.

Hippocrates IV.?

Dracon ITI,

2 Tzetzes (Chiliad. VII. c. 155) merely borrows from Soranus. The article in
Suidas, which is more than usually distinct and consistent, seems also to be derived
from Soranus, or from the same sources. The coincidences are pointed out in
Kuster’s notes. 3 Soranus, p. 1297 ad fin.

4 Soranus makes him the rgth, and Tzetzes, who gives his genealogy, the 17th. _

5 Hence the story of Augeas. 6 Aristot, περὶ θαυμασίων ἀκουσμάτων, 6. 85.

ΓΙ ΨΥ Ν᾿

HIPPOCRATES. 899

of medicinal springs.’ His professional education was, no doubt,
conducted in the priestly college at Cos, his special instructors
being his own father, and the celebrated Herodicus, of Selymbria,
in Thrace, who combined gymnastic training with the medical
treatment of his patients. It was probably in consequence of
his literary tastes that he became a pupil of the great sophists,
Prodicus and Gorgias. His intercourse with Democritus of
Abdera, who was born in the same year with himself, is rather
indicated than established by a fictitious correspondence, of
which two letters, the production no doubt of a later sophist,
are still extant; and it is clear that they were rather friends
than related as teacher and pupil.? It is stated, and the state-
ment is not improbable, that Hippocrates left Cos at an early
period, and spent a great part of his life in travelling. His
reputation among his contemporaries, and the familiar mention
of his name by Athenian writers, seem to show that his
activity was not confined to the little island off Halicarnassus.
There is a familiar allusion to him in the Thesmophoriazuse of
Aristophanes, which was acted in B.c. 411,° and Plato expressly
mentions Hippocrates of Cos as the most eminent medical man
of the day in the Protagoras, which, as we have seen, was pro-
bably written a short time before the death of Socrates. There
is also reason to believe that Plato was acquainted with the
writings of this physician, to one of which there is a special
reference in the Phedrus.2 On the whole, we cannot doubt

1 Diodorus, V. 3. Schol. Soph. Trachin. 635.

2 Suidas: οὗτος μαθητὴς γέγονε τὸ μὲν πρῶτον τοῦ πατρός, μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ‘Hpodixov
τοῦ Σηλυβριανοῦ καὶ Τοργίου τοῦ Λεοντίνου ῥήτορος καὶ φιλοσόφου" ὡς δέ τινες
Δημοκρίτου τοῦ ᾿Αβδηρίτου (ἐπιβαλεῖν yap αὐτὸν νέῳ πρεσβυτήν [they were of the
same age], ὡς δέ τινες καὶ ἸΤροδίκου. With the exception οἵ Prodicus all these
names are mentioned by Soranus and Tzetzes,

8 Thesmoph. 270:

Eup. ὄμνυμι τοίνυν αἰθέρ᾽, οἴκησιν Διός.
My. τί μᾶλλον ἢ τὴν Ἱπποκράτους ξυνοικίαν ;
Εὐρ. ὄμνυμι τοίνυν πάντας ἄρδην τοὺς θεούς.

This is obviously an allusion to the oath of the school of Hippocrates, which
begins as follows (Hippocr. vol. IV. p. 632, Littré): ὄμνυμι ᾿Απόλλωνα ἰητρὸν καὶ
᾿Ασκλήπιον καὶ ‘Yyceltav καὶ ἸΤανακείαν καὶ θεοὺς πάντας τε καὶ πάσας, ἵστορας ποιεύ-
μενος ἐπιτελέα ποιήσειν κατὰ δύναμιν καὶ κρίσιν ἐμὴν ὅρκον τόνδε καὶ ξυγγραφὴν τήνδε.

4 Protagoras, p. 311 B. See above, ch. XX ΧΤΧ, § 6, p. 222 [62].

5 Phedrus, p. 270 C. It had always been thought, on the authority of Galen

400 MEDICAL LITERATURE.

that Hippocrates aimed at and obtained a panhellenic reputation
even in his lifetime; and the best way to effect this would be
to make himself personally known to the leading communities.
After a residence of many years in Thasos and at Abdera, he
spent some time at Athens, and was honoured by an invitation
to the Prytaneium, by the full franchise, and by initiation at
Eleusis. It is stated that these honours were the rewards for
his services during the great plague; but Thucydides, who
gives such a minute account of that pestilence, makes no men-
tion of Hippocrates, who says nothing of this disease in his
writings. It is more likely that his residence at Athens com-
menced after that time, and continued till- his country fell off
from the Athenian alliance, some time after 8.0. 411. He
then took up his abode in Thessaly, and was condemned, in his
absence, on an indictment preferred against him by Antiphon.'
Whether the professional and literary labours, which occupied
the remainder of his long life, were carried on chiefly in Thes-
saly, or in his native island of Cos, cannot be ascertained, It
is stated, however, that he died and was buried at Larissa in
Thessaly,’ and there are reasons, which do not seem to have
occurred to any of those who have written about Hippocrates,
for concluding that his connexion with that district was more
than casual. The name of Hippocrates is more likely to have

(Tom. V. pp. 2, 16 ed. Basil.), that Plato was here referring to the treatise by
Hippocrates on the nature of man, or that the work to which he alludes is lost ;
but Littré argues that the reference in the Phedrus should be ons a with two
passages, one in the treatise ‘on regimen,’ and the other in that ‘on ancient
medicine’ (Zuwvres d Hinpocrate, I. pp. 299 sqq-).

1 Tn the text of the Vite X. Oratorum, p. 833 D, it seems uncertain whether
we should read ‘Immoxpdrovs τοῦ ἰατροῦ, or τοῦ στρατηγοῦ : but Photius (Cod.
CCLIX.) has ἰατροῦ only.

2 The following extract from a recent number of the Medical Times shows that
this fact in the necrology of Hippocrates is likely to be supported by documentary
evidence of the best kind :

‘A good deal of interest has been excited on the continent by the supposed dis-
covery of the tomb of Hippocrates near Larissa in Thessalia. We have the au-
thority of Soranus for the belief that Hippocrates died at Larissa, and that his
tomb was shown between that town and Gyrton. It appears that in 1826 some
peasants discovered a sarcophagus near Larissa, after an inundation; and two
Greek gentlemen, named Andreades and (Economides, discovered an inscription on
the lid, the letters ITIIIOKPAT being plainly visible. Nedjib-bey, the Turkish
governor, had the tablet carried off, and some coins and a gold chain which were in

HIPPOCRATES. AOL

belonged to a noble Thessalian family than to an Asclepiad of
Cos. We know, from Pindar, that Hippocleas, a very similar
name, was borne by a wealthy young Thessalian of Pelinnzeum,
whose victory at Delphi was celebrated at Larissa.!_ The lead-
ing family in that place, the Aleuadz, boasted, like Hippo-
crates, that they were Heracleide. Aisculapius himself was
claimed by the Thessalians.* The principle, according to which
the name of the son is the epithet of the father,’ gives a special
value to the fact that the elder son of Hippocrates was called
Thessalus, while his younger son, Draco, was called after the
serpent of Aisculapius. From all these circumstances, we are
disposed to infer that the family of Hippocrates properly
belonged to Thessaly, and that their connexion with the medical
school at Cos may have been originally a result of their choice
of that celebrated seat of the worship of their hereditary god.

the sarcophagus were stolen, This year Dr. Samartsides found the tablet in the
house of the bey, and copied the following inscription in ordinary Greek characters :—

PanMORPAD 4. ΚΩ, τὶ . « ATAAOS.,
> Se 5 ΣΝ ΤΠ ρεν ater eh! δ’, eh >
Pee het, te oe eM OS 2 DAES,
ΝΕ τὩἨἨῤ᾿ἰ λα - tAPH) ee ony co BNBEA.; %

ΡΣ Ut A ae am: ΒΩ,

* He says he concludes from the form of the letters that they are very ancient.
There are traces of effaced letters in the spaces marked by dots. The sarcophagus
remains perfect in the spot where it was found. It remains for some professed
antiquary to restore the lost letters, and seek for their interpretation ; but nothing
satisfactory can be done without an exact copy of the inscription either by pho-
tography or a mould, as it is by the form of the letters and the mode in which they
are cut, that the age of the inscription must be determined. The name Hippocrates
is, and has been, a very common one in modern as in ancient Greece, and we want
something more than the mere inscription of this name upon a stone before it can
be decided whether the tomb found near Larissa is or is not that of the father of
medicine.’

The copy of the inscription here given can hardly be quite correct. At least the
words χρηστὲ χαῖρε should be written together as in Béckh, Corp. Inscr., No.
554, 1, p. 491, pp. 866, 867, &c. The line before seems to have been ἀγαθῇ τύχῃ
ἀρετῆς ἕνεκα. Aglaophon (’A7yAaogév), which seems to be implied in the first line,
was a Thasian name, and may have referred to some Thasian friend of Hippocrates.

1 Pind. Pyth. X.

3 Pind. Pyth. III. 14, Apollodor. IIT. το, ὃ 3. Strabo, XIV. p. 647. Euseb.
Prep. Ev. p. 124 A.

3 Miiller, Dor. I. 3, ὃ το, note F. The fact that Cimon’s son was called Lace-
demonius is the strictest parallel.

Vou. 11, DD

402 : MEDICAL LITERATURE.

The year of his death is uncertain; it is fixed by different
ancient writers at Ol. 100, 4. B.c. 377; Ol. 102, 1. B.c. 372;
Ol. 104, 1. B.c. 364; Ol. 105, 2. B.c. 359; Mr. Clinton" adopts
the year B.c. 357, which makes him 104 years old at the time
of his death. The celebrity of Hippocrates had made him almost
a mythological personage. His journeys to Llyria, Macedonia,
and Persia,’ though possible in themselves, were probably sug-
gested by incidents in the lives of Democedes and other famous
physicians; and the well known story about his discovering
the love-sickness of Perdiccas II. of Macedon is confuted by the
chronology ; for the incident refers to a time when Alexander,
the father of Perdiccas, was still on the throne, and Hippocrates
was a mere child at the time of that prince’s death.’

§ 2. In order that we may appreciate the collection of
writings attributed to Hippocrates, we must take a brief survey
of the circumstances under which medical literature sprang up
among the Greeks.

There can be no doubt that medicine was at first regarded
as a branch of the priestly or prophetic office. To ward off or
alleviate disease was considered as something superhuman. At
all events, an immediate appeal to heaven was generally pre-
sumed and required, in order to impart sufficient confidence to
the patient ; and the superior education and studious habits of
the priests would naturally make them the first in this as in
other branches of scientific research. Whatever knowledge the
priests thus acquired, they communicated only to those who
were initiated into the mysteries of their temples; and when a
special deity had been introduced to preside over the relief of
human ailments, his priests would constitute a medical college,
in which only those who were connected with the same worship
would be permitted to graduate. It is clear that these priestly

BAT; ΤΟ τὰν;

2 The letter of Artaxerxes about Hippocrates, which is found among the epistles
of the latter, and is also given by Suidas, is interesting in itself, and may represent
as genuine a tradition as the letter which Themistocles is said to have addressed to
the great king. Otesias at all events received and accepted an invitation to the
Persian court.

3 It seems most probable that Alexander died about B.c. 454 (Clinten, 7. H. ΤΙ.
p- 222), .6.,) only six years after the birth of Hippocrates. ;

BEGINNINGS OF GREEK MEDICINE. 403

physicians first appeared in Egypt.' The god of medicine
originally belonged to the elementary worship of that country
and Syria. He was the son of the god of light, and repre-
sented the atmosphere necessary to the life and health of man.*
At a very early period this divinity was adopted by the Greeks,
who assigned to him a Thessalian origin, and gave him a Greek
name indicating that he was a Prometheus, or god of fore-
thought, the inventor of those mild remedies which preserved
men from pining away in sickness.* His sons, Podaleirius and
Machaon, whose names admit of a surgical interpretation,’
belonged to the heroes of the Trojan war. And though
Aisculapius was slain by a thunderbolt for restoring a dead
man to life,» he became himself a recognized divinity.
Asclepeia, or temples of this divinity, were opened for the cure
of diseases in many parts of Greece, especially at Epidaurus, in
Rhodes, Cos, and Cnidos, and in the Libyan colony of Cyrene ;
and the priest-physicians very soon found it convenient to
claim descent from the god of healing himself. The mode of
treatment adopted in these curative establishments was a
mixture of science and imposture, and, like most medical

1 The physicians formed a caste in Egypt, and were divided into as many sections
as the medical men in a modern metropolis. See Herod. II. 84.
2 Creuzer, Symbolik 11., pp. 558 sqq.
8 Sickler, die Hieroglyphen in dem Mythus des dZisculap (apud Creuzer, u. 8. p.
559). .
4 Whatever may be the oriental affinities of the god of health, it is clear that the
Greeks fabricated their name for him, and that its elements are contained in the
well-known lines of Auschylus (Prom. 478 sqq.) :

el τις els νόσον πέσοι,
οὐκ ἣν ἀλέξημ᾽ οὐδὲν, οὔτε βρώσιμον,
οὐ χριστὸν, οὔτε πιστόν, ἀλλὰ φαρμάκων
χρείᾳ κατεσκέλλοντο, πρὶν ἔγὼ σφίσιν
ἔδειξα κράσεις ἠπίων ἀκεσμάτων.

The ancient grammarians saw in the accentuation of the word ᾿Ασκλήπιος a trace
of its connexion with ἤπιος (see Bickh, Not. Crit. ad Pind. Pyth. III. 6), and the
first part of the compound is ἀσκελής, an Homeric word, which contains the root of
κατεσκέλλοντο in the passage just quoted, and is opposed to the Homeric διερός,
“juicy, full of the sap of life.’ So also in Auschylus (Choeph. 294) the victim of
wasting death is described as: κακῶς ταριχευθέντα παμφθάρτῳ μόρῳ.

5 Podaleirius implies the ready aid, and Machaon the surgical knife of the
Asclepiads.

6 Pind. Pyth. III. 97.

404 MEDICAL LITERATURE.

quacks, the Asclepiads relied in part on influencing th
imagination of their patients. The sick man, who made appli.
cation for a cure of his disease at any one of the more cele
brated temples of /Esculapius, was subjected to a prolongec
regimen under the name of religious purification. A sort ὁ
water-cure was combined with fasting, unction, and aperien
medicine. When the head of the college thought that he wa:
adequately prepared for the final remedy, the patient was
admitted to the temple, where he passed the night, and the
priests took care that the necessary treatment was prescribed tc
him in the form of a well-arranged theophany.' The success 0
the treatment adopted was generally aided by the locality choser
for the Asclepeion, which was situated either on some healthy
sea coast, or in some cool and sheltered grove, so that the
change of air and other concomitants assisted in the cure
Frequented as they were by invalids from all parts of Greece
these priest-colleges gradually acquired a large amount o
empirical science, which was duly committed ‘to writing anc
preserved for the use of the corporation.” These records o:
cases and their treatment furnished the physicians with ¢
sufficient induction for certain generalizations, which wer
eventually published in the age immediately preceding Hippo.
crates, in the form of aphorisms. To this class belonged ‘ The
Cnidian Sentences’ (ai Κνίδιαι γνῶμαι), against which an im.
portant treatise of Hippocrates is directed. This transference o:
medical knowledge from the mysterious sanctity of the temple
to the outer world of literature and science was farther assistec
by the physical speculations of philosophers like Melissus.
Parmenides, Empedocles, and others. One of these, Alemzor
of Crotona, combined the speculative philosopher with the
practical surgeon, and introduced the indispensable adjunct οἱ

1 There is an elaborate caricature of one of these scenes in the Asclepeia in the
Plutus of Aristophanes (vy. 660 foll.), First we have the priest sacking the cakes
and dried figs from the altars (ταῦθ᾽ ἥγιζεν εἰς σάκταν τινά). Then the representa-
tive of Aisculapius appears with his two daughters, Iaso and Panacea, and pre:
pares remedies for the patients ; and the scene is closed by an apparition of the
tame snakes, whose tongues are supposed to be the immediate agents in the cure.

5 Pliny, H. N. XXIX. 1, §2; Tzetz. Ohil. VII. 150; Petersen, Hippoerati:
nomine que circumferuntur scripta ad temporum rationem disposita, Hamburg,
1839, p. 42, note.

GREEK PHYSICIANS. 405

all scientific anatomy—the dissection of animals.’ About the
same time, the regular Asclepiads began to practise as travelling
physiciaus (περιοδευταί), and without any reference to the
sanitary establishments, with their hydropathy and incubations,
at the temples of the god. As early as the time of Darius, a
Greek physician, Democedes of Crotona, was in high favour at
the Persian court, to the discomfiture of the Egyptians pre-
viously established there,’ and the first foundations were laid of
that fame of Greek physicians in the east which made Bokrdat,
as the Arabic writers call Hippocrates, an oriental celebrity even
in the middle ages. Then, again, Herodicus of Selymbria, the
teacher of Hippocrates, introduced the curative treatment of
the Asclepeia, so far as it depended on bodily exercises, into
the regular gymnasia or places of training, and he is re-
proached by Plato* as having introduced a system of nosotrophy
for the benefit of feeble frames, to which a prolonged existence
did not of right belong. Thus ventilated in every way—by the
philosophical school, the travelling physician, and the palestra
—medicine was certain to establish itself as a branch of lite-
rature ; and the circumstance, which probably gave Hippocrates
his epochal position, was simply the fact that he was the first
regular Asclepiad who was enabled to get a complete literary
and rhetorical training, and so to enlist the muses in the cause
of his special profession. In the succeeding age, as we have
seen,’ Aristotle, the greatest literary man of Greece, came forth
from the schools of the Asclepiads, and starting with the
physiological acquirements peculiar to his school, combined
with this all the knowledge of his age, and sounded all the
depths of natural and moral science.

Hippocrates himself, though he professed to be a philosopher,
never digressed from his own proper subject-matter, and being
the first who gave medicine a recognized and important position
in literature,’ it was not unnatural that he should in a sub-

ΟἹ Littré, I. p. 14. 2 Herod. III. 130 sqq.

3 Respublica, III. p. 406 A, sqq. 4 See above, chapter XL. § 1.

® Cicero seems to consider elegance of style a not unusual characteristic of
medical writers: ‘si, id quod multi, medicus de morbis diserte dixerit’ (De Ora-
tore, Il. 9, ὃ 38). It was this acquisition of the literary franchise which may be
especially attributed to Hippocrates.

406 MEDICAL LITERATURE.

sequent generation monopolize the credit due to a large body
of fellow-workers in this department, and so become invested
with the authorship of the principal works on disease and its
remedies which were published in his time, or immediately
before and after him. And this tendency would be increased
by the wish of the library-collectors at Alexandria and Pergamus
to get as many as possible of his works, a demand which of
course increased the supply, when the only labour imposed
upon the bookseller was an alteration of the title of the
manuscript.

§ 3. The Hippocratic collection of medical treatises is
divided, according to the usual classification in such cases, into
three classes—the genuine, the doubtful, and the spurious.
The books belonging to the first and third of these classes are
received or rejected with a certain amount of confidence; the
doubtful works are those of which it can only be said that they
were perhaps written by Hippocrates. It was necessary, even in
early days, to draw up a canon distinguishing the authentic
works of Hippocrates from those which were falsely or erro-
neously attributed to him, and the critics of Alexandria had
comprised the former in a little tablet (μικρὸν πινακίδιον).
This list is unfortunately lost. Erotianus, who dedicates the
work to Andromachus, Nero’s chief physician, drew up a cata-
logue of the writings of Hippocrates, not exactly corresponding
to those which have come down to us, and also compiled a
glossary to the Hippocratic writings (τῶν παρ᾽ ᾿Ἱπποκράτει
λέξεων συναγωγή). In the reign of Hadrian, two learned
physicians, Artemidorus Capito, and Dioscorides, undertook
a critical edition of the Hippocratic works, but this is
known to us only by name. Galen, in the second century
after Christ, announced a treatise on the subject, which is not
found among his numerous writings. He was followed by
Palladius, in the seventh century, who recognized only eleven
works as genuine. The scholars who have written on the
subject since the revival of learning have come to various con-
clusions, according to the different principles by which they
were guided in their discrimination of the genuine and spurious

1 Galen, De Dific. Respir. II. Ὁ. 182.

GENUINE WORKS OF HIPPOCRATES. 407

works. Hieronymus Mercurialis' admitted nineteen works as
having proceeded from Hippocrates himself, Haller? recognized
fifteen genuine writings, Gruner* reduced this list to ten, and J.
H. Fischer‘ to seven. According to the latest investigations, the
following works may be accepted as those best entitled to bear
the name of Hippocrates.

(1.) The first and third books of the treatise ‘on epidemic
affections’ (περὶ ἐπιδημιῶν), in which he describes the local
diseases which he had observed in Thasos, Thessaly, and else-
where. The division into chapters is due to Mnemon, who
sold the third book to Ptolemy Euergetes. The remaining five
books are recognized as genuine by Erotianus, and probably
contain many germs of Hippocratic teaching, so that they have
been sometimes attributed to Thessalus, whom Galen however
expressly excludes from the authorship of the fifth and seventh
books.’

(2.) The treatise ‘ on prognostics’ (προγνωστικά) is generally
regarded as a genuine and early work of Hippocrates, though it
is obviously subsequent to the two genuine books on epidemics.

(3.) The treatise ‘on regimen in acute diseases’ (περὶ διαίτης
ὀξέων) is accepted as genuine, with the exception of the last
part, manifestly an interpolation. This book is sometimes
styled ‘ against the Cnidian sentences’ (πρὸς rac Κνιδίας
γνώμας), sometimes ‘ on barley-water’ (περὶ πτισάνης).

(4.) The books ‘ on atmospheres, waters, and localities’ (περὶ
ἀέρων, ὑδάτων, τύπων) is one of the most universally recognized
works of Hippocrates. It seems to be alluded to in the Clouds
of Aristophanes, which was acted in B.c. 423,’ and there is a
resumé of its contents in Aristotle’s Politics.

᾿(5.) The essay ‘ on wounds of the head’ (περὶ τῶν ἐν κεφαλῇ

1 Censura Operum Hippocratis, Venet. 1583.

2 Artis Medicine Principia, tom. IV. Pref. Lausanne, 1769-1784.

3 Censwra librorum Hippocraticorum, qué vera a falsis, integri a suppositis
segregantur, Vratisl. 1772.

4 Dissertatio de Hippocrate ejusque scriptis, Coburg, 1777.

5 Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. II. pp. 563 foll.

5 Schol. ad Aristoph. Nub. 331: ἰατροτέχνας : καὶ ἰατροὶ wept ἀέρων καὶ ὕδατος

συνέγραψαν. ὕδατα δέ εἰσι καὶ al νεφέλαι. σύνταγμα δέ ἐστιν Ἱπποκράτους περὶ
ἀέρων, τόπων, καὶ ὑδάτων.

7 4(VIL.), 7, 2; see Littré, I. p. 333.

408 MEDICAL LITERATURE.

τρωμάτων) is accepted by all the critics, except Grimm, as a
genuine work of Hippocrates.

(6.) The treatise ‘ on fractures’ (περὶ ἀγμῶν) is also generally
accepted, though a modern critic’ supposes that only a part of
the work actually proceeded from Hippocrates himself.

(7.) ‘The aphorisms’ (ἀφορισμοί), perhaps the best known
of all the Hippocratic books, are confidently placed in the first
class. This work contains more than four hundred short sentences
of a practical nature, either culled by Hippocrates himself at a
late period of his life from his other works and from the
memoranda of his medical practice, or formed by some writer of
his school soon after his death. In this respect, the doubt is
much the same as that which we have expressed regarding the
epitomes attributed to certain historical writers,” though it is
more likely that a practical physician would make a collection
like ‘the aphorisms’ of Hippocrates, than that a writer of
history would abridge the details which it was his professed
intention to record. We are of opinion that this treatise,
which contains the germs of all the doctrine of Hippocrates,
and which is still not without its value in medicine, is a some-
what interpolated edition of a work which the great physician
committed to writing himself, and which he intended to bear
the same relation to his practice that the temple-archives of the
Asclepeia did to the experience acquired by the managers of
those establishments. It was such a work as a modern phy-
sician might compile from his case-book.

ὃ 4. The doubtful works, or those which were perhaps
written by Hippocrates or published from his materials, in-
clude a number of treatises, which have been admitted into the
first class by one or more critics. They are as follows :—

(1.) ‘ The oath’ (ὅρκος) is recognized by Erotianus, and we
have seen that it is manifestly referred to by Aristophanes.*
Whether. it was drawn up by Hippocrates himself for the
corporation to which he belonged, or was a later document
formed on the same model, may be doubted. In its original

. 1 Petersen, Hippoer. nomine que circumferuntur seripta ad tempp. ratt. dispo-
sita, Hamburg, 1839, p. 13.
2 For example, see above, chapter XLIII. ὃ 6, p. 394 [234].

3 Above, p. 399 [239].

DOUBTFUL WORKS OF HIPPOCRATES. 409

form, at all events, it belonged to the oldest part of the
Hippocratic collection.

᾿ς (2) ‘The law’ (νόμος) has been admitted by Erotianus, and
is maintained by Littré as a necessary supplement to ‘ the oath’
in the freemasonry of ancient medicine.’ Dr. Greenhill,’ on
the contrary, thinks that ‘the oath’ and ‘the law’ belong to
different periods, ‘ the former having all the simplicity, honesty,
and religious feeling of antiquity, the latter somewhat of the
affectation and declamatory grandiloquence of a sophist.’

(3.) ‘On ancient medicine’ (περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς). Most
of the critics are agreed that this treatise was not written by
Hippocrates; but Erotianus recognizes its genuineness, and
Littré has entered upon a strenuous and elaborate vindication
of its claim to a place in the first part of the Hippocratic
collection. He relies very much on the fact, which he con-
ceives he has discovered, that the reference to Hippocrates in
the Phedrus of Plato can be verified in this treatise, in oppo-
sition to the less tenable opinion of Galen that this reference
applied to the treatise ‘on nature.’* The book ‘on ancient
medicine’ is, at all events, an early and important treatise, and
it is not at all improbable that it is a new edition of a work by
Hippocrates.

(4.) ‘On articulations’ (περὶ ἄρθρων). This treatise is ad-
mitted by Erotian and Galen, it was commented on by
Bacchius and Philinus, pupils of Herophilus, and is strenuously
maintained by Littré.* Other critics reject it.

(5.) ‘ On the instruments of reduction’ (μοχλικόν). This is
directly admitted by Galen and others. Littré has shown that
it was an abridgment of the book ‘on articulations.’ In the
old collections it was combined with the fragment ‘on veins’
(περὶ φλεβῶν). ᾿

The remaining treatises of this class owe their position to
the apparent admixture of genuine fragments with additions
by the followers of Hippocrates: (6.) ‘On ulcers’ (περὶ ἑλκῶν) ;

1 G@uvres @ Hippocrate,1. p. 344. 2 Smith’s Dictionary, ΤΙ. p. 487.
3. @uwres d Hippocrate, I. p. 299 sqq., as cited above, p. 400 [240].
4 Ibid. p. 333 sqq. 5 Ibid. p. 340.

ὁ Παραστάτας" ras ἐπιδιδυμίδας ἐν τῷ περὶ φλεβῶν ὃ πρόσκειται TE μοχλικῷ.
Gloss. 8.0. παραστάτας, cited by Littré, p. 341.

410 MEDICAL LITERATURE.

(7.) ‘on fistulas’ (περὶ συρίγγων), and ‘hemorrhoids’ (περὲ
αἱμοῤῥοΐδων) ; (8.) ‘on epilepsy’ (περὶ ἱερῆς νούσου) ; (9.) ‘on
the surgery’ (κατ᾽ ἰητρεῖον), which is closely connected with
the treatise ‘ on the instruments of reduction.’?

§ 5. The spurious works of the Hippocratic collection have
been subdivided by Dr. Greenhill’ according to the following
classification. They are either (I.), older than the time of
Hippocrates ; (II.), contemporary, or nearly so; (III.), later
than Hippocrates.

(I.) In the first of these subdivisions we have only two
treatises; ‘the prognoses of Cos’ (Kwaxai προγνώσεις), and
‘the predictions, Book I” (προῤῥητικὸν A). It has been sup-
posed’ that these very ancient writings contain, in part at least,
the notes taken by the Asclepiade in the temples, which fur-
nished, as we have seen, a starting-point to the medical litera-
ture of Greece. If so, they belong to the class of books to
which Euripides makes reference in his Alcestis,‘ a tragi-comedy
performed, according to a recently-discovered authority, in B.c.
458."

(II.) The works supposed to belong to the same age as Hip-
pocrates are again distinguished, as (a) those whose authors
may be assigned with some probability, and (Ὁ) those whose
authors are altogether unknown. (a) The treatise ‘on the
aston of man’ (περὶ φύσιος ἀνθρώπου), and its supplement

‘on the healthy regimen’ (περὶ διαίτης ὑγιεινῆς), are attributed
to Polybus, the son-in-law of Hippocrates, because a passage
quoted from Polybus by Aristotle is found verbatim in the

1 Littré, I. p. 367. 2 Smith’s Dictionary, II. p. 486.
3 Grimm, German Translation of Hippocrates, II. p. 508; Littré, I. p. 351.
4 vv. 962 sqq.:

ἐγὼ καὶ διὰ μούσας

καὶ μετάρσιος fia, καὶ

πλείστων ἁψάμενος λόγων

κρεῖσσον οὐδὲν ἀνάγκας

εὗρον, οὐδέ τι φάρμακον

Θρήσσαις ἐν σανίσιν, τὰς

᾿Ορφεία κατέγραψεν

yijpus, οὐδ᾽ ὅσα Φοῖβος ᾿Α-

σκληπιάδαις ἔδωκεν

φάρμακα πολυπόνοις ἀντιτεμὼν βροτοῖσιν.

«5 See Dindorf, Pref. Ld. Oxon. 1834, p. 7.

SPURIOUS WORKS ATTRIBUTED TO HIPPOCRATES. 41]

former of these treatises.’ References by Galen and Soranus
have led to the inference that the celebrated Euryphon of
Cnidus was the author of the second and third books of the
treatise ‘ concerning maladies’ (περὶ νούσων), and of the essay
‘on the nature of women’ (περὶ γυναικείης φύσεως)," and Littré
has conjectured,’ on the strength of a citation in Aristotle,*.
that a certain unknown Leophanes or Cleophanes was the
author of the treatise ‘ on superfetation’ (περὶ ἐπικυήσιος). (0)
Among the works by unknown authors, which are supposed to
have proceeded from the contemporaries of Hippocrates, that
‘on diet’ is fixed to a period subsequent to B.c. 381 by a coin-
cidence with the calendar of Eudoxus, to which Dr. Greenhill
has directed attention.’ The other books of this class, such as
the second, fourth, and sixth books of the Epidemia, and those
‘on humours’ (περὶ χυμῶν), and ‘ the use of liquids’ (περὶ ὑγρῶν
χρήσιος), are generally collections of notes and extracts, which
have found a place in the Hippocratic collection, for the want
of any definitely assigned authorship.

(III.) The spurious works admitted to be later than Hippo-
crates are sufficiently numerous, and are divided by the latest
critics into three distinct classes: (a) those which are authentic
but not genuine, 1.6. not wilful forgeries, and these again into
(@,) works by the same author, or (a,) books by different
authors ; and (6) those which are wilful forgeries. Of the first
class of these (a,), Littré infers’ that they were anterior to Aris-
totle, and were all the works of some one writer, who announces
that he had also written ‘on peripneumony’ (περὶ περιπνευμο-
vine), and ‘on the diseases of young women’ (περὶ παρθενιῶν
νούσων), treatises which are quite lost. The essays which we
have are ‘on generation’ (περὶ γονῆς) ; ‘on the nature of the
infant’ (περὶ φύσιος παιδίου) ; the fourth book ‘on maladies’
(wept νούσων τὸ τέταρτον) ; ‘on the maladies of females’ (περὶ

1 Aristot. Hist. Anim. III. 3: Πόλυβος δὲ ὧδε x.7.X., compared with Hippocr.
περὶ φύσιος, p. 23, Froben.

2 Galen, Comment. in Hippocr. de Morb. Vulg. V1.1. 29, Littré, I. pp. 47,
363; Ermerius, De Rat. Vict. in Morb. acut. pp. 363, 9.

% Guvres @ Hippocrate, I. p. 381.

4 De Generat. Animalium, IV. ο. τ. 5 -Smith’s Dictionary, II. p. 487.

6 Guvres ¢ Hippocrate, I. pp. 373—379.

412 MEDICAL LITERATURE.

γυναικείων a, 2’); ‘on the diseases of girls’ (περὶ παρθενίων) ;
‘on barren women’ (περὶ ἀφόρων). In the second class (a,) we
have the fifth and seventh books of the Epidemia, a second
book of ‘the predictions,” and a number of minor treatises,
including one ‘on the weeks’ (περὶ ἑβδομάδων), which exists
only in a Latin translation, and one ‘on the nature of the
bones’ (περὶ ὀστέων φύσιος), which is made up entirely of
extracts from other works in the Hippocratic collection. In
the last class (ὁ), we have epistles, speeches, and other non-
medical works, which are obviously due to the ingenuity of
Sophists.

§ 6. A discussion of the time and manner of the publication
of the Hippocratic books involves some questions of general
interest in reference to a history of Greek literature. These
questions have been adequately examined by Littré,’ and we
shall here content ourselves with an exhibition of the general
results.

This collection, as far as the medical works are concerned,
is authenticated, as consisting of treatises anterior to the year
B.C, 300, by the fact that it was commented upon and cited by
Hierophilus who flourished about that time, and by his imme-
diate successors, Baccheius and Philinus. We have also seen
that Aristotle quotes, by the name of Polybus, one of the
works now included in this collection, and that we have, among
these, others which can be assigned inferentially to persons who
were contemporary with Hippocrates, or lived shortly after his
time. It is also clear that we have in the collection some
writings which are not entitled to be considered as independent
or complete works, such as series of extracts and abridgments,
notes and compilations. Finally, it is stated, that the Alexan-
drian grammarians themselves did not accept, without discrimi-
nation, the works presented to them as the productions of
Hippocrates, but that ‘ the separators’ (οἱ χωρίζοντες), as they
were called, placed only those, which appeared to them au-
thentic, in a special class, under the name of ‘ the book of the
little table’ (rd ἐκ τοῦ μικροῦ πινακιδίου)." From all these
considerations, it may be inferred that the Hippocratic collec.

1 ures d’ Hippocrate, 1. pp. 262—292.
2 Galen, III. p. 181, ed. Basil.

PUBLICATION OF THE HIPPOCRATIC COLLECTION. 413

tion was formed at some time subsequent to Aristotle, and ante-
rior to Ptolemy Euergetes; that at first it was regarded as
made up of genuine works classed by themselves, and of other
medical treatises brought to Alexandria at different times, and
placed in the library beside Hippocrates; and that, ultimately,
the line of demarcation, between the books of the little table
and the rest of those medical works which a less critical or
more ignorant age ceased to distinguish from them, was removed
and forgotten. And the whole list of books came into the hands
of the later critics and commentators, and was by them given
forth to the world, under the great name of the father of medi-
cine. There was nothing peculiar in this. The same thing has
happened to all the great writers of antiquity, whose works were
sufficiently famous and sufficiently voluminous to admit of this
mixture of the genuine and the spurious. Aristotle, Demo-
sthenes, and in a smaller degree Plato, have given their names
to books or speeches included in the collections of their works,
but certainly not written by them. And even the Canon of
the New Testament is exhibited with an obliteration of the three
distinctions known to Eusebius.’ In the case of Hippocrates,
it is sufficient to know that we have an adequate sample of his
genuine writings, and can gather from them what he was both
as a literary man and as a medical philosopher.

§ 7. It does not belong to our present business to discuss
the medical science of Hippocrates; but we must not conclude
without a few observations on his style, dialect, and literary
merits.

In many particulars we must regard Hippocrates as standing
in a similar position to Herodotus. Both born in Dorian
colonies,—for Cos and Halicarnassus are separated only by a
few miles of sea,—they were both resident for a considerable
time at Athens, or in communication with Athenians; and we
find that both of them wrote a form of the Ionic dialect nearly
approximating to the old Attic, and that both of them imitated
some favourite Attic author, Herodotus taking some of his

1 The three classes distinguished by Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. III. 25, pp. 244 sqq.,
Heinichen), namely, the ὁμολογούμενα, the ἀντιλεγόμενα, γνώριμα δ᾽ οὖν ὅμως τοῖς
πολλοῖς, and the v6@a—might furnish names to the three classes of the Hippocratic
works,

414 MEDICAL LITERATURE.

most striking passages from the great poet Sophocles,’ and
Hippocrates selecting the great historian Thucydides as, in a
certain sense, his pattern. With regard to the dialect of
Hippocrates, it is clear that he adopted it as a conventional or
fashionable idiom. Just as Herodotus wrote Ionic in imitation
of the historians, who immediately preceded him, so Hippo-
crates conformed to the practice of the natural philosophers,
whom he emulated in his own particular branch of physiology.
He was not influenced by any desire to please Democritus,
but he wished to adopt a style common to him with Parme-
nides, Anaxagoras, Melissus, and Diogenes of Apollonia. The
manuscripts of Hippocrates, as they have come down to us,
exhibit great inconsistencies in the orthography, but the
general impression is that of an artificial and conventional
Ionism, deliberately adopted as the most appropriate phraseo-
logy of science. Whether Thucydides, during his exile at
Scaptesyle in Thrace, had any immediate intercourse with
Hippocrates, who is said to have been resident at the same time
in the island of Thasos, immediately opposite to that part of
Thrace, or at Abdera on the same coast, cannot be determined ;
but it is more than probable that two such men would fall in
with one another, and form the usual relations of literary inter-
course. The account of the plague in Thucydides exhibits a
minute detail of symptoms, which would almost persuade us
that he had submitted his description to some medical man ;?
and as he does not mention Hippocrates, who, on the other
hand, does not refer to this epidemic, it is not altogether
unnatural to conjecture that Hippocrates may have revised
this account derived from a sufferer; and that having done so,
he did not repeat elsewhere what was so graphically told in the
contemporary history, and was known to himself only from this
source. Be this as it may, Littré, who has studied Hippo-

1 See Transactions of the Philological Society, vol. I. p. 161.

2 The description of the plague in Thucydides is so minutely accurate and cir-
cumstantial, that a modern physician has been able to infer from the words of the
historian that the malady was in reality a very violent scarlatina, probably aggra-
vated by the crowded state of the city, and other depressing circumstances ; see
Dr. C. Collier’s History of the Plague of Athens, translated from Thucydides ;
with remarks explanatory of its Pathology. London, 1857.

STYLE OF HIPPOCRATES. 415

crates with the most intelligent attention, recognizes a close
affinity between his style and that of Thucydides,’ though he
attributes it to the general law that writers of the same epoch
naturally fall into the same mode of thinking and expressing
their meaning. The extreme brevity, which Galen notices as a
remarkable characteristic of Hippocrates, is also a conspicuous
feature in Thucydides. It is in consequence of this that so
many of the sententious phrases of Hippocrates have taken their
place in the habitual language of civilized Europe. His state-
ment at the beginning of his Aphorisms, that ‘ Life is short and
art long, that time flies, that experience is deceitful, and that
judgment is difficult,’* not only supplies rules for the medical prac-
titioner, but furnishes common proverbs for every society ; and
it is repeatedly quoted by the Greek rhetoricians as a specimen
of pregnant brevity.* In his style, no less than in his medical
system, Hippocrates acts on the principle which is expressed, in
very Thucydidean language, in a well-known passage of the
treatise ‘on articulations,’ and he regards affected verbiage
with the same contempt which he expresses for medical
quackery and charlatanism. ‘If it were possible, says he,’
‘to make men healthy in various ways, it would be best to
choose that which is least troublesome; for this is both more
honest and more scientific, unless one aims at vulgar imposition.’
We see in his style that complete appropriation of all the
resources of language which marks the great writer, whatever
his subject may be. Thus, a common verb is made to bear in

1 Quvres d Hippocrate, I. p. 474: ‘plus j’ai medité sur le style de l'un et de
l’autre, et cherché a pénétrer les procedés, la forme, et le sentiment, plus aussi je
me suis conyaincu qu'il existait entre ces écrivains une é¢troite affinité—ainsi est-ce
ἃ Thucydide qu’il faut comparer Hippocrate,’ &c.

2 TV. p. τι, ed. Basil. : Ἱπποκράτης μὲν ἐν τοῖς πλείστοις τῶν ἑαυτοῦ συγγραμ-
μάτων ἐσχάτως βραχύλογος ὦν.

3 Aphor. I. ὃ 1: ὁ βιὸς βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς, ἡ δὲ πεῖρα
σφαλερή, ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.

4 See Demetr. περὶ ἑρμηνείας, vol. IX. p. 3, Walz.; Joann. Sicel. Schol. in
Hermog. vol. VI. p. 236, Walz.

5 De Articul. p. 837 F: εἰ δὲ πολλοῖσι τρόποισιν οἷόν τε εἴη ὑγιέας ποιεῖν, τὸν
ἀοχλότατον χρὴ αἱρέεσθαι. καὶ γὰρ ἀνδραγαθικώτερον τοῦτο καὶ τεχνικώτερον, ὅστις
μὴ ἐπιθυμέει δημοειδέος κιβδηλίης. ‘The word ἀνδραγαθικός, which seems to be
peculiar to Hippocrates, reminds one of the Thucydidean verb, ἀνδραγαθίζομαι
(II. 63, IIT. 40).

416 MEDICAL LITERATURE.

its varied inflexions the meanings of the technical noun which
is derived from it.' He does not hesitate to give emphasis to a
passage by the introduction of a new but appropriate compound.’
The technicalities of his subject are constantly relieved by an
elegance of phraseology which is almost poetical. And there
is scarcely a beauty of simple and emphatic Greek prose which
may not be exemplified in the oldest writings of the Hippocratic
collection. On the whole, it may be said, with truth, that
whatever may be the value of these old medical books to modern
disciples of Aisculapius, no student of Greek has seen’ all the
varied excellences of that wonderful language, if he has never
made acquaintance with the original text of Hippocrates.

1 For example, κρίνομαι is used in the medical sense of κρίσις, Aphor. I. 20:
τὰ κρινόμενα καὶ τὰ κεκριμένα ἀρτίως μὴ Kwéew, μηδὲ νεωτεροποιεῖν μήτε
φαρμακείῃσι μήτ᾽ ἄλλοισιν ἐρεθισμοῖσιν ἀλλ᾽ ἐᾶν. II. 2, 3: τὰ ὀξέα τῶν νουσημάτων
κρίνεται ἐν τεσσαρεσκαίδεκα ἡμέρῃσιν.

2 Aphor. 11. 44: οἱ παχέες σφόδρα κατὰ φύσιν ταχυθάνατοι γίνονται μᾶλλον
τῶν ἰσχνῶν.

3 As in the use of the verb ξυναποθνήσκειν of an incurable complaint, Aphor. V.
4, or of the verb λυμαίνεσθαι, to express the sufferings caused by a useless surgical
operation, De Articul. vol. IV. p. 252, 1. 14, Littré; cf. the λυμανθὲν δέμας of
ZEschylus, Choéph. 288.

417

THIRD PERIOD OF GREEK LITERATURE.

l

CHAPTER XLV.

THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

§ 1. Alexandria and the Ptolemies. ὃ 2. Alexandrian poets ; their proper classifi-
cation and arrangement. § 3. Philetas in Alexandria, and Aratus in Macedonia,
§ 4. Callimachus. § 5. Lycophron and the tragedians. § 6. The epic and
didactic poets, Apollonius, Rhianus, Euphorion, and Nicander. § 7. The
bucolic poets, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. § 8. The parodists and
phlyacographers.

οὐδῷ S the literary predominance of Athens, which gave a

special character to the second period of Greek
literature, was due mainly to the political importance of Attica,
it was a natural consequence that the downfal of Athenian
independence should bring with it first a deterioration, and
ultimately an extinction of that intellectual centralization
which had for more than a century sustained and directed the
best efforts of Hellenic genius and culture. But while the
living literature of Greece was thus dying away, an incidental
result of the oriental conquests of Alexander prepared a new
home for the Muses on the coast of that wonderful country, to
which all the nations of antiquity had owed a part, at least, of
their science and of their religious belief.’ In Egypt, as in
other regions,’ Alexander gave directions for the foundation of
a city, which was to be called after his own name. This new
city of Alexandria, which soon filled all the space between the
lake Mareotis and the sea at the Canopic mouth of the Nile,

1 There is a very lively and interesting account of the foundation of Alexandria,
and the character of its literature, in Mr. Kingsley’s Alexandria and her Schools,
Cambridge, 1854.

3 There were more than twenty cities named Alexandria, or Alewxandropolis,
and of these Candahar and Scanderoun still bear traces of their Greek name, and
Herat is still a place of considerable importance.

WoL. if. EE

418 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

and was connected with the island of Pharos by a great mole,
on which the modern town has sprung up, was built by Cleo-
menes of Naucratis,' after the plans of the architect Dinochares,
and became not only the most magnificent city of the Hellenic
world, but the capital of a Greek kingdom, and the residence of a
family who attracted to their court all the living representatives
of the literature of Greece, and stored up in their enormous
library all the best works of the classical periods which we
have hitherto discussed.? It was chiefly in the reigns of the
first three of these Ptolemies that the city of Alexandria was
made a new home of Greek literature. Soter, who ruled from
B.c. 306 to B.c. 285, under the inspiration of Demetrius
Phalereus, the last of the Athenian orators, laid the founda-
tions of the library, which was kept partly in the temple of
Serapis, and partly in the Brucheium adjoining the palace;
and also instituted the Museum, or temple of the Muses, where
the literary and scientific men of the age were maintained by
endowments not unlike our fellowships or lay canonries, and
where they enjoyed collectively the advantage of a reference to

1 See the plan and description in Parthey’s valuable monograph entitled, Das
Alexandrinische Museum, Berlin, 1838, pp. 18—34.

2 The chief authority, or rather the most definite statement respecting the
library at Alexandria, is a Latin scholium on Plautus, discovered by Professor
Osann in 1830; see Welcker, Der Epischer Cyclus I. p. 8; Ritschl, Die Alex-
andrinischen Bibliotheken, p. 3. The author quoted from is Cecius, and W.
Dindorf has shown (Rhein. Mus. 1836, p. 232) that this must be a classical sub-
stitute for Tzetzes, the Scholiast on Aristophanes, who sometimes calls himself
Κέκος, or Kéxxos. The following is the statement concerning the library: ‘Nam
rex ille [Philadelphus] philosophis affertissimus [Ritch] reads differtissimus, and
Thiersch (De Pentat. Vers. Alex. p. 9), proposes affectissimus] et ceteris omni-
bus auctoribus claris, disquisitis impensa regize munificentie ubique terrarum
quantum valuit voluminibus opera Demetrii Phalerii phzxa senum [Ritschl reads
prehensa secum, and Bernhardy: et LXX. senwm], duas bibliothecas fecit ; alteram
extra Regiam, alteram autem in Regia. In exteriore autem fuerunt milia voluminum
quadraginta duo et octingenta. In Regie autem bibliotheca voluminum quidem
commixtorum volumina quadringenta milia, simplicium autem et digestorum milia
nonaginta, sicuti refert Callimachus aulicus Regis bibliothecarius, qui etiam
singulis voluminibus titulos inscripsit.’ From this statement we gather that the
library contained—(qa) in the Bruchetwm, which was the primary place of deposit,
400,000 rolls of duplicates and other unsorted books, and 90,000 separate works
properly arranged ; and (6) in the Serapewm 42,800 volumes, probably the ultimate
selection, or most valuable books in the whole collection. The value of this
scholium consists mainly in the presumption that it was derived by Tzetzes from
the genuine writings of Callimachus and Eratosthenes. |

THE PTOLEMIES. 419

books, which, as we have seen, Aristotle had provided for himself
individually at a very great expense. This encouragement of
literature was carried on with still greater earnestness by
Philadelphus (B.c. 285—247), who had the celebrated Calli-
machus for his librarian, and not only bought up the whole of
Aristotle’s collection, but transferred the native annals of
Egypt and Judea to the domain of Greek literature, by employ-
ing the priest Manetho to translate the hieroglyphics of his
own temple archives into the language of the court, and by
procuring from the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem the first part of
that celebrated version of the Hebrew sacred books which was
completed after the time of Philometor, and was called the
Version of the Seventy, from the number of the Council which
sanctioned it. Euergetes (B.c. 247-222), whose literary circle
boasted of the great name of Eratosthenes, increased the
library, not only by fair means, but also by somewhat dis-
honestly, though at a heavy cost to himself, depriving the
Athenians of their authentic edition of the great dramatists,
which Lycurgus had laid up in the public archives.’ One of
the plans which he adopted was to require from all merchants
and navigators, who came to Alexandria, the loan of any books
which they happened to have with them. A copy was made
and given to the proprietor, but the original was deposited in
the library, with the inscription, ‘a book from the ships’ (τὸ ἐκ
τῶν πλοίων). The tendency of all this hot-bed encouragement
of literature was to produce a few eminent men of science, a
reasonable supply of second-rate and artificial poets, and a host
of grammarians and literary pedants, who indulged in specula-
tions more or less intelligent on subjects of literary criticism,
hermeneutics, and bibliography. This grammatical tendency
began in the time of Philadelphus ; and Callimachus, Alexander
the Δ πο απ, Lycophron, Zenodotus, Aristarchus, and Aristo-
phanes of Byzantium, compiled editions, glossaries, grammars,
and commentaries, which had the effect of fixing the Greek
language in a generally intelligible and uniform state or con-
dition. The process was much the same as that adopted by

1 Above ch. XLII. ὃ 3, p. 354 [194].
2 Galen, vol. V. p. 412, ed. Basil.; F. A. Wolf, Prolegom. p. CLXXVIL. ;
Littré, Hippocrates, vol. I. pp. 274 544.
EE 2

490 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—PORTS.

the Jewish Masorethe after the return from exile,’ or by the
grammarians of King Vicramdditya’s court in India.? The
oldest writers suffered most under the Procrustean operation,
and the Homer of Aristarchus appears in a modernized form,
under which only the critical genius of Bentley could perceive -
the original and obsolete forms, with their digammas and
primitive assibilations. In the course of time, the library
founded at Pergamus by Eumenes, which multiplied pergament
or parchment copies in rivalry of the papyrus or paper books
of Alexandria, was transferred to Egypt; and however little we
may be indebted to Callimachus and his successors for their
remodelling of ancient works, we must always thank the
Ptolemies for preserving to our times, in a form more or less
complete and authentic, all the best specimens of Greek litera-
ture which have come down to us.

§ 2. In speaking of the literary productions, which were
fostered or forced in the hot-beds of Alexandrian learning, we
naturally begin with the poets. And here it is scarcely possible
to classify the writers according to the older divisions of Greek
poetry. For some of the most eminent of the Alexandrian
men of letters tried their strength in many, some in all these
departments. Callimachus, indeed, who was the head of the
school, was not only a writer of all kinds of poetry, but also
a critic, grammarian, historian, and geographer—one, in fact,
who was a living representative of the great library over which
he presided.- It will be most in accordance then with the
general objects of this work, and with the convenience of the
reader, if we exhibit the Alexandrian poets in their distinct per-
sonality as a portrait gallery, arranged rather in chronological
order than according to the subject-matter of their writings.’
In this way we must begin with Philetas, who was the tutor,
not only of the second Ptolemy but also of Theocritus, the
most charming poet of the Alexandrian Court in the reign of

1 Van der Hooght, Pref. in Bibl. Hebr.§ 24. As we shall show in the next
chapter, the Hebrew Masorets were not uninfluenced by the contemporary scholars
of Alexandria.

2 This was by far the most recent of these grammatical epochs of literature, as —
it began, according to Ideler’s calculations, in the year B.c. 58. See Lepsius,
Chronologie der Aigypter I. p. 4.

3 The first six librarians of the Alexandrian collection were Zenodotus, Callimachus,

CLASSIFICATION OF THE POETS. 421

Philadelphus. With him we shall associate his contemporary
Aratus. In the next place, we must present Callimachus, who
is also distinguished by his success as a teacher of others, and
who was not only the greatest man of letters under Phila-
delphus and Euergetes, but counted among his pupils the most
eminent epic poet of the school, his successor, Apollonius Rho-
dius, besides the philosopher Eratosthenes, the historian Ister,
and the grammarian Aristophanes of Byzantium. We shall
assign the third representative position to Lycophron, who
retains his place in all the different versions of the Pleiad, or
list of the seven tragedians of Alexandria, and who was a con-
temporary and fellow-labourer of Callimachus in the Museum.
In the fourth compartment we shall class together the epic
poets Apollonius, Rhianus, and Euphorion. In the fifth group
we shall have the writers of idyls, Theocritus, Bion, and Mos-
chus. And in the sixth place, we shall glance at the disrepu-
table family of Sotades, and the sillographies of Timon.

Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Aristophanes, and Aristarchus (Ritschl, Alex. Bibl.
p- 19 sqq., cf. Parthey, Alex. Mus. pp. 71 sqq.), and the following table gives the
chronology of these writers and their contemporaries (Ritschl, u.s. pp. 89, 90).
Philip of Macedon. . . Ol. sd Philetas born.

Ptolemy Soter . . . . . rit { Zenodotus born.

He Callimachus born.

117, 3 Ptolemy Philadelphus born.

ΜῈ Aratus born.

121, 1 Demetr. Phal. comes to Alexandria.

Ptolemy Philadelphus . . . 124 Library founded. Zenodotus librarian.
Antigonus Gonatas. . . . Aratus goes to Macedonia.
Lycophron.
126 LEratosthenes and Euphorion born.
126

127 Apollonius born.

ri Aristophanes born,

131 Apollonius goes to Rhodes.

133 Callimachus librarian.
Ptolemy Euergetes. . . . 133, 2 Eratosthenes summoned to Alexandria.
Ee eee ee a.) Eratosthenes librarian.

138

139
Ptolemy Epiphanes. . . . ‘ ἢ Apollonius librarian. Aristophanes librarian.
148

Aristarchus born.

Eumenes II. . Aristarchus librarian,

422 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—PORTS.

§ 3. As far as we can learn, the founder of a school of
poetry at Alexandria, and the model for imitation not only to
those who immediately succeeded him in that city, but also to
the Roman writers of elegiac poetry, whose names are familiar
as household words to all educated Europeans, was Puruptras of
Cos, the son of Telephus, whom Ptolemy Soter invited to his
Court, and made the tutor to his favourite son and successor
Philadelphus.' This educational appointment was due less to
the poetical eminence of Philetas than to his repute as a gram-
marian and critic, and he was associated with Zenodotus of
Ephesus, not only in this office, but also in the work of editor-
ship, which formed a great part of the literary business at
Alexandria. The dates of the birth and death of Philetas are
unknown. Suidas speaks of him as having lived in the time of
Philip and Alexander, but this is hardly consistent with the fact
that he was a contemporary of Aratus,? who flourished at the
Court of Antigonus Gonatas, and of Theocritus,? who must have
been at the height of his reputation in B.c. 270. The extreme
emaciation of his person, which exposed him to the joking im-
putation of wearing lead in the soles of his shoes lest he should
be blown away,‘ and which is attributed to a perplexing study of
the Megaric subtleties,’—a study said to have shortened his life®
—would seem to indicate a feeble constitution’ quite incon-

1 The notice in Suidas is: Φιλητᾶς, KGos, vids Τηλέφου, ὧν ἐπί re Φιλίππου καὶ
᾿Αλεξάνδρου, γραμματικὸς [καὶ], κριτικός" ὃς ἰσχνωθεὶς ἐκ τοῦ ζητεῖν τὸν καλούμενον
ψευδόμενον λόγον, ἀπέθανεν, ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ διδάσκαλος τοῦ δευτέρου Πτολεμαίου"
ἔγραψεν ᾿Επιγράμματα, καὶ ᾿Ελεγειὰς, καὶ ἄλλα.

2 Vit. Arati, apud Clinton, F. Η. s.a, a.c. 272: ᾿Ἄρατος. .. συνήκμασε δὲ
᾿Αλεξάνδρῳ τῳ Αἰτωλῷ καὶ Φιλητᾷ.

3 Theocritus speaks as though Philetas were still living in his VII. Jd. 40, where
he is coupled with Asclepiades of Samos ; with reference to this passage we are told :
ἀκουστὴς δὲ γέγονε Φιλητᾶ καὶ ᾿Ασκληπιάδου ὧν μνημονεύει (Θεοκρ. yévos); and the
same statement has been extracted by Wiistemann (Theocr. p. 106) from a corrupt
passage in Cheeroboscus (fol. 176, Catal, Bibl. Coislin.): Φιλητᾶς [vulgo Φιλίππας]}
ὁ διδάσκαλος Θεοκρίτου.

4 Plut. An Seni ὅς. p. 791, E.; Athen. XII. p. 552,.B; ΖΦ πηδη, V. H. IX,
14, X. 6.

5 Suidas, u.s.

ὁ In Athen. IX. p. 401, F., we have the following epigram :—

ξεῖνε, Φιλητᾶς εἰμί" λόγων ὁ ψευδόμενός με
ὥλεσε καὶ νυκτῶν φροντίδες ἑσπέριοι.

7 Plut. u.s. speaks of Prodicus and Philetas as véous μὲν ἰσχνοὺς δὲ καὶ νοσώδεις
καὶ τὰ πολλὰ κλωρπετεῖς δι᾿ ἀῤῥωστίαν ὄντας.

PHILETAS. 423

‘sistent with longevity. All these considerations should
induce us to fix the period of his birth at about B.c. 330,
and his death shortly before the accession of Philadelphus
in B.c. 285.

Philetas was chiefly celebrated as an elegiac poet, and in
this branch of literature he occupied the highest place along
with Callinus, Mimnermus, and Callimachus.' With the
latter, he formed the chief model for the Latin elegiac poets.
Propertius, in particular, constantly refers to Philetas as the
source of his inspiration, once, according to an ingenious
emendation, in conjunction with Mimnermus, more frequently
coupled with Callimachus, to whom, however, he seems, on the
whole, to have preferred him.?_ The style of his poetry, which
is partly indicated by the fragments, is sufficiently represented
by these Roman imitators. His elegies were occupied with the
languishing sentimentalities of an eager or complaining lover.
A particular mistress, or the feigned name of one, Bittis,
Battis, or Batto,® plays the same part as the Cynthia and Delia
of his Roman imitators. The high esteem in which he was
held by his contemporaries is indicated by the manner in which
Theocritus mentions his name,‘ and by the effect which he

1 Proclus, Chrestomath. p. 379, Gaisford.
3 The following are some of the references to Philetas in Propertius ; III. 26, 31:
Tu satius memorem Musis imitere Philetam,
Et non inflati somnia Callimachi,
where Scaliger reads : Musis meliorem, and Hertzberg : Tu socius Musis Mimnermi.
Id. 1V.1, 1:
Callimachi Manes et Coi sacra Philetz
In vestrum, queso, me sinite ire nemus.
Fad, ἘΥ͂. 3; 51:
Talia Calliope lymphisque a fonte petitis
Ora Philetz& nostra rigavit aqua.
Id. V. 6, 3:
Cera Philetzis certet Romana corymbis
Et Cyrenzeas urna ministret aquas. Ὁ
Callimachus and Philetas, and their three Roman imitators, are classed together
by Statius, Silv. IL. 1, 252—255.

3 Birris, Hermesian. apud Athen. p. 598, F, v. 77. Barris, Ov. Trist. I. 6, 2;
Ep. ex Ponto, 111. τ, 58. The name Birrw occurs in inscriptions, and Lachmann
proposes to read Battds from Barra, in Prop. IIT. 26, 3r.

4 Theocr. VII. 40: οὐ γάρ πω κατ᾽ ἐμὸν νόον οὐδὲ τὸν ἐσθλὸν

Σικελίδαν νίκημι τὸν ἐκ Σάμω οὔτε Φιλητᾶν
ἀείδων" βάτραχος δὲ ποτ᾽ ἀκρίδας ὥς τις ἐρίσδω.

424 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

produced on the fashionable literature at Alexandria and the
imported poetry of Rome; and there cannot be any doubt that
he was an admirable specimen of that ingenious, elegant, and
harmonious versification which takes the place of higher poetry
in a refined and artificial age. Besides these elegies, Philetas
wrote sportive epigrams on Bittis (παίγνια, Stobeeus, ἐπιγράμ-
ματα, Suid.),’ a poem in elegiac verse on the lamentations of
Demeter for her daughter,’ which may have served as a model
for the laments of the Bucolic poets, and a poem in Hexa-
meters, called Hermes,’ which is described by Parthenius* as relat-
ing to a love affair of Ulysses. An attempt has been made to
refer to this poet an elegiac couplet quoted by Strabo from the
Hermeneia of Philetas,” but as he was a grammarian by profes-
sion, it is not at all improbable that the work referred to was a
critical treatise on interpretation full of quotations from various
poets.

Besides his labours as a poet Philetas was an eminent com-
mentator and grammarian. In conjunction with his colleague
Zenodotus, he wrote notes on Homer, which were sharply criti-
cized by Aristarchus.6 His principal contribution to grammar
was a book of miscellanies (ἄτακτα or ἄτακτοι yAwoaat),’
work of such general notoriety that the comic poet Strato
refers to it as a well known authority for the meaning of words.*
It is also combined with a reference to his love poems by Her-
mesianax,? and is perhaps to be sought in an emendation

1 Hertzberg, Quest. Propert. p. 208.

2 Stobeeus, Florileg. CIV. 11, CXXIV. 26.

3 Id. Flor. CIV. 12, CX VIII. 3; Eclog. Phys. V. 4. 4 Erot. 2.

5 Strabo, III. p. 168: καὶ Φιλητᾶς τε ἐν Ἑρμηνείᾳ, where it is proposed to read
ἐν ‘Epp ἐλεγείᾳ. :

8 Schol. Venet. ad 11. 11, 111.

7 Cited by Schol. Apoll. Rhod. IV. 989, as ἐν ἀτάκτοις γλώσσαις : by Etym. M.
s.v. Ἐλινός, as ἐν γλώσσαις. The emendation of Schweighzuser in Athen. XI.
467, of ὡς Φιλητᾶς φησὶν ἐν᾿Ατάκτοις for év’ σταῖς is generally admitted.

8. Athen. IX. p. 383, B:

ὥστε με
τῶν τοῦ Φιλητᾶ χαμβάνοντα βιβλίων
σκοπεῖν ἕκαστα τί δύναται τῶν ῥημάτων.

9. Athen. XIII. p. 598, F:

Βιττίδα μολπάζοντα θοὴν περὶ πάντα Φιλητᾶν
ῥήματα καὶ πᾶσαν ῥνόμενον λαλίην.

HERMESIANAX, PHANOCLES, ARATUS. 425

of an epigram by the grammarian Crates which combines the
glosses of Philetas with his Homeric studies." The logical
studies of Philetas are attested by the extravagant story, to
which we have already referred, that he wasted his feeble
frame in vain attempts to solve the Ψευδόμενος of the Megaric
School.

_ The immediate successors of Philetas as an elegiac poet were
his friend Hermestanax’? and Pxranocies, whose age is not
known.* But if we would understand his importance with
reference to the school of Alexandria, and the effects which the
patronage of the Ptolemies produced on the formation of an
artificial and exotic literature in that great city, we must com-
pare him with his contemporary Aratus, who was court poet
to another successor of Alexander in Macedonia itself. No
efforts on the part of the Macedonian kings seem to have suc-
ceeded, in creating a love of learning in the country, to the
neighbourhood of which the Greeks referred the primitive
poetry of Orpheus. Archelaus gave a welcome to Euripides ;
Philip committed the education of his son to Aristotle; and
Antigonus Gonatas entertained Aratus at his court. But no
lasting fruits were produced, and Macedonia, which contributed
so much to the Hellenism of Asia, remained to the last only
partially Greek itself.

Aratus, the son of Athenodorus, was born in Cilicia, ac-
cording to some authorities at Soli, according to others at
Tarsus,* and was a contemporary, perhaps a friend, of Philetas.
He went to Athens at an early age, and there became a hearer

1 Anthol. Palat. XI. 218:
Xolpiros ᾿Αντιμάχου πολὺ λείπεται, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ πᾶσιν
Xolpirov Ἑὐφορίων εἶχε διὰ στόματος,
καὶ κατάγλωσσ᾽ ἐπόει τὰ ποήματα, καὶ τὰ Φιλητᾶ
ἀτρεκέως ἤδει᾽ καὶ γὰρ 'Ομηρικὸς Fv.
The common reading is τὰ φίλητρα, which makes no sense in this connexion.

3 There is a considerable fragment of Hermesianax in Athen. XIII. p. 597.
It is part of the third book of his poem, addressed to his mistress Leontium, and
has been repeatedly edited in a separate form.

3 The style of Phanocles belongs to the same class with that of Philetas,
Hermesianax, and Callimachus, and he was probably their contemporary.

4 There are four lives of Aratus (Ἀράτου Bios, apud Buhl. I. Vite Arati tres, 11.
PP. 429—445), besides the article in Suidas.

;

426 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXAynn«: —POETS.

of the Stoic philosopher Perseus,’ whom he eventually accom-
panied to the court of Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius
Poliorcetes. Here he was so well entertained that he spent
the remainder of his life in Macedonia. At the request of his
patron he composed the poem which gained him his chief
celebrity. It was an ingenious versification of the two books
entitled "Evorrpoy and Φαινόμενα, by which Eudoxus of Cnidus
had made Egyptian astronomy and meteorology popular in
Greece. And Aratus, who was not himself an observer, or,
indeed, a scientific man in that sense, so completely superseded
Eudoxus, that a great work of Hipparchus was a commentary
more immediately on the poem of Aratus than on the scientific
treatise from which its materials were derived.? Aratus divided
his poem into two parts corresponding to the two works of
Eudoxus, the first called Φαινόμενα, Phenomena, in 732 verses,
being an essay on astronomy, and the second called Διοσημεῖα,
or, more properly, Διοσήμια, Prognostics, in 422 verses, being
a treatise on the changes of weather and their effects. This
latter poem was not only taken from Eudoxus, but also bor-
rowed in good measure from Aristotle’s Meteorologica and
Theophrastus’ De signis ventorum. The great popularity of
this work, as a pleasing compendium of the existing knowledge
on the subject, is shown not only by the fact already men-
tioned, that a really scientific man like Hipparchus made it the
text of his learned commentaries, but also by the high repute
which the work enjoyed among the educated Romans. Cicero,
who was quite aware that Aratus was only a versifier of a sub-
ject which he did not thoroughly understand,’ thought it worth
while to translate the poem into Latin verse, and the same task

1 According to Suidas he was also a pupil of Menecrates of Ephesus, of Timon,
and of Menedemus.

2 The title of the work of Hipparchus is: τῶν ’Apdrov καὶ Evddtou φαινομένων,
ἐξηγησέων βιβλία +.

3 The word Διοσήμια occurs in Aristoph. Acharn. 171, and elsewhere: there is
no authority for Avoonueta, and Grauert maintains (δον die Werke des Dichters
Aratus von Soli, Niebuhr’s Rhein. Mus. 1827, p. 336, foll.) that even the former
could not have been the title of a work or part of a work by Aratus.

4 De Oratore, I. τό, § 69: ‘si constat inter doctos hominem ignarum
astrologie Aratum ornatissimis atque optimis versibus de ccelo stellisque
dixisse,’ &c. :

ARATUS. 427

was afterwards undertaken by the Emperor Domitian' and by
Avienus.? Ovid says’ that the fame of Aratus will be as lasting as
the sun and moon; and the Apostle Paul, when speaking in the
Areopagus, cites him to the Athenians as one of their own poets,
for the saying at the beginning of his poem, that we are all the
offspring of the chief of the gods.‘ Besides Hipparchus, who
wrote on the book on account of its scientific contents, it
formed the subject of numerous critical and grammatical com-
mentaries, commencing with the time of Callimachus and
Attalus of Rhodes, who were nearly contemporaries of Aratus,
and going on to Aristophanes of Byzantium, Aristarchus, and
Achilles Tatius. A work, which attracted so much notice,
must have had some special merit, in addition to its popular
treatment of a generally interesting and difficult subject. But
we cannot profess much enthusiasm for the specimens preserved
in the Latin translations, or for the magniloquence of such lines
as this:

‘Deep from the marsh where they lie croak forth the fathers of tadpoles.’®

Besides the two books, which became so popular, it seems that
Aratus wrote several others on the subject of Astronomy, which
are quoted under the titles of ᾿Αστροθεσία and ὁ κανών. Ina
commentary on Hesiod, the grammarian Tzetzes quotes the
fifth book of the ᾿Αστρικά of Aratus.” And a modern scholar,
who does not believe that Aratus wrote a book called Διοσήμια,

1 Tt is generally supposed that the Cesar mentioned as the translator of Aratus
was Germanicus, the father of Caligula, but Janus Rutgersius (Var. Lect. III.
p- 276, quoted by Grauert u.s. p. 347) has proved that the translator must have
been Domitian. :

2 Aratea Phenomena, and Aratea Prognostica, printed in Lemaire’s edition of
Avienus.

3 Amores I. 15, 16:

Nulla Sophocleo veniet jactura cothorno,
Cum Sole et Lun& semper Aratus erit.

4 Acts xvii. 28: ὡς καί τινες τῶν Kad’ ὑμᾶς ποιητῶν εἰρήκασιν' Tod γὰρ καὶ
γένος ἐσμέν.

5 Diosem. 946:

αὐτόθεν ἐξ ὕδατος πατέρες βοοῶσι γυρίνων.

δ Schol. Arat. v. 450; Suidas s.v.; Achilles Tatius ap. Petav. Doctr. Temp,
TIT. c. 15.

7 Ad Hes. O. et D. I. p. 6, Heins.: "Aparos ἐν τῇ πεμπτῇ τῶν ᾿Αστρικῶν.

428 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POBRTS.

but that the book so called got this erroneous name from a
second title, προγνώσεις διὰ σημείων, has conjectured that in
the original form of the work called Φαινόμενα several books
were interposed between the two which became so famous, so
that the whole poem was of very considerable extent.? Aratus
is also said to have written elegies, like his contemporary
Philetas,*? whom he emulated, too, ‘as a critic and commentator
on Homer, having published a recension (διόρθωσις) of the
Odyssey.

From all this, it is clear that Aratus was a poet and
grammarian of the same mark and likelihood as his contempo-
raries of Alexandria, and that he really belonged to the school
in which he found his chief admirers and expositors. Theo-
critus, whose life was spent between Syracuse and Alexandria,
addresses a poem to Aratus, and speaks of him as a familiar
friend,* and could hardly have made his acquaintance unless
Aratus had been to Alexandria, or had met Theocritus in Cos,
in the school of Philetas, for he was not likely to have travelled
to Sicily. We venture, therefore, to consider Aratus, as a
corresponding member of the school of Alexandria, as an out-
lying appendage to that body of writers ;° and we regard the

1 This title is given to the second work in the life of Aratus (Vita 11.),

2 Grauert, u.s. It is the opinion of Grauert that the ᾿Αστρικὰ of Aratus was a
poem in five parts, comprehending two parts of the Phenomena, the ’Acrpofecia
and the Συνανατελλόντων καὶ συνδυνόντων, or ᾿Ανατολή (which Hipparchus at the
beginning of his commentaries calls Dvvavaronal), then the Kdvwy, and after this
the Prognostica or Διοσήμια. The Canon of Aratus is farther discussed in an
excellent paper by Béckh, De Arati Canone, 1828, reprinted in the Philological
Museum, 11. pp. 101 foll. He says (p. 103): ‘Aratum in Canone sonorum
musicorum designationem et cum hae spherarum concentum et aliquid fortasse de
motu docuisse liquet, conjiciasque illud spherarum systema harmonicum, quod a
musicis excogitatum refert Achilles Tatius, ex Arateo esse Canone petitum.’

3 Judging, however, by the specimen in Macrobius (Sat, v. 20, 8), the style was
not Philetzean :

αἰάζω Διότιμον ὃς ἐν πέτραισι κάθηται
Γαργαρέων παισὶν βῆτα καὶ ἄλφα λέγων.

4 The sixth Idyll of Theocritus is addressed to Aratus, and in the seventh, of
which the scene is laid in Cos, Aratus is mentioned several times, once as the
ξεῖνος of the poet (v. 119, cf. vv. 97, 122), and there is good reason for the con-
jecture of Wiistemann (ad Theocr. p. 108) that Theocritus and Aratus were fellow
pupils of Philetas in his native island.

5 Athenodorus, the brother of Aratus, defended Homer against the attacks of
Zoilus, and was probably a resident at Alexandria.*

CALLIMACHUS. 429

fact that he had no followers in Macedonia as a proof of the
ungenial nature of the soil to which he was transplanted, and
as an additional tribute to the zeal and good management
by which the Ptolemies converted their African city into a
second Athens. :

§ 4. The established type of an Alexandrian man of letters,
the most finished specimen of what might be effected by dis-
tinguished talents, unwearied learning, and the mere ambition
to obtain the praise of contemporaries, when backed by the
active patronage of a court, may be seen in CaLiimacuus, who
was the librarian of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the head of his
museum, the teacher of Apollonius the poet, Eratosthenes the
philosopher and historian, and Aristophanes the grammarian
and critic, and himself the literary dictator and universal
genius of his age. The following particulars, mainly derived
from Suidas,' contain all that is known of his life. He was a
native of Cyrene, son of Battus and Mesatme, and belonging to
the founder’s kin or clan of the Battiade. His grandfather,
also called Callimachus, had been general of the Cyreneans.’
Educated by the grammarian Hermocrates, he established him-
self as a schoolmaster in a suburb of Alexandria, called Eleusis,
and gained such reputation by his various writings that he was
appointed to the place of chief librarian, when it became vacant
by the death of Zenodotus, about B.c. 260; and he filled this
office for the remainder of his life. The year of his death is
not known, but Aulus Gellius says that he was still flourishing
at the commencement of the first Punic war,’ and it is known
that he was alive in the reign of Euergetes.* It is pretty clear,

1 Καλλίμαχος, vids Βάττου καὶ Mecdruas [Μεγατίμας Hemsterh.], Κυρηναῖος,
γραμματικός, μαθητὴς Ἑρμοκράτους τοῦ ᾿Ἰάσεως, γραμματικοῦ, γαμετὴν ἐσχηκὼς τὴν
Ἑῤφράτου τοῦ Συρακουσιοῦ θυγατέρα, οὕτω δὲ γέγονεν ἐπιμελέστατος ὡς γράψαι μὲν
ποιήματα εἰς πᾶν μέτρον, συντάξαι δὲ καὶ καταλογάδην πλεῖστα, καὶ ἐστὶν αὐτῷ τὰ
γεγραμμένα βιβλία ὑπὲρ τὰ ὦ" ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν χρόνων ἣν Πτολεμαίου τοῦ Φιλαδέλφου.
πρὶν δὲ συσταθῇ τῷ βασιλεῖ γράμματα ἐδίδαξεν ἐν ᾿Ελευσῖνι κωμυδρίῳ τῆς ᾿Αλεξαν-
δρείας. καὶ παρέτεινε μέχρι τοῦ Evepyérou κληθέντος ἸΤτολεμαίου. :

2 Callim. Zpigr. XXII. Anthol. Pal. VII. 525:

ὅστις ἐμὸν παρὰ σῆμα φέρεις πόδα Καλλιμάχου pe,
ἴσθι ἹΚυρηναίου παῖδά τε καὶ γενετήν.
εἰδείης δ᾽ ἄμφω κεν. ὁ μέν κοτε πατρίδος ὅπλων
ἦρξεν" ὁ δ᾽ ἤεισεν κρέσσονα βασκανίης.
3 Noctes Attice, XVII. 41, 21. 4 Suidas, u. s.

430 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POBTS.

at any rate, that he did not die before Ol. 133, B.c. 248—245.'
His wife was a daughter of Euphrates of Syracuse; and his
sister Megatime, who married Stasenor, had a son Callimachus,
who wrote an epic poem ‘on the islands’ (περὶ νήσων), and is
distinguished from his uncle as Callimachus the younger.

Few writers have been more prolific than Callimachus.
Living in the midst of books, and engaged in incessant study,
he seems to have thought himself obliged to write in verse or
prose on every subject which he had read about ; and he believed
at last that he was not only omniscient, but enjoyed a monopoly
of knowledge. Hence we find that some of his works are
expressly directed against literary men of rising eminence, whom
he regarded as poaching on his manor, and his own pupil,
Apollonius of Rhodes, was a special object of his jealousy.
It is stated by Suidas that his works were eight hundred in
number. This means, of course, that every separate poem and
pamphlet was counted as a distinct work; and, with the
exception of the Hecale, which he wrote to show that he could
manage to compose a lengthened poem, Callimachus used to
justify, by his own practice, his saying, which has become so
celebrated, that ‘a great book is a great evil.”* It was his
object, as he tells us in answer to Apollonius and the other
critics, who thought nothing of a poet unless he could pour
forth an ocean of words, to give little, but pure and undefiled
drops from the sacred fountain.* And it is therefore possible

1 Clinton, F. H. 5. a. B.c. 256, extends his life to B.c. 230, but see Merkel in
the Prolegomena to his edition of Apollonius Rhodius, Lips. 1854, pp. XI. seqq.

2 Suidas: Καλλίμαχος Κυρηναῖος ἐποποιός, ἀδελφιδοῦς τοῦ προτέρου, vids Στασή-
νορος καὶ Μεγατίμας τῆς ἀδελφῆς Καλλιμάχουι And in the former article: ἀδελφῆς
δὲ αὐτοῦ παῖς ἣν ὁ νέος Καλλίμαχος ὁ γράψας περὶ νήσων δι᾿ ἐπῶν. The writer of the
article Callimachus in Smith’s Dictionary, calls his father Stasenorus, which is not
a Greek word.

3 Athen. III. p. 72 A: ὅτι Καλλίμαχος ὁ γραμματικὸς τὸ μέγα βιβλίον ἴσον,
ἔλεγεν, εἶναι τῷ μεγάλῳ κακῷ.

4 Hymn, ad Apollinem, 105 sqq. :

ὁ Φθόνος ᾿Απόλλωνος ἐπ᾽ οὔατα λάθριος εἶπεν"
“οὐκ ἄγαμαι τὸν ἀοιδὸν ὃς οὐδ᾽ ὅσα πόντος ἀείδει.᾽
τὸν Φθόνον ὡπόλλων ποδί τ᾽ ἤλασεν ὧδέ τ᾽ ἔειπεν"
“᾿Ασσυρίου ποταμοῖο μέγας ῥόος, ἀλλὰ τὰ πολλὰ
λύματα γῆς καὶ πολλὸν ἐφ᾽ ὕδατι συρφετὸν ἕλκει.
Δηοῖ δ᾽ οὐκ ἀπὸ παντὸς ὕδωρ φορέουσι Μέλισσαι,

CALLIMACHUS. 431

that he may have made up the large number of writings
attributed to him in the shape of hymns, elegies, epigrams, and
fugitive pieces in prose. Of all these writings, we have only
a few poems; and one of these is extant merely in a Latin
translation by Catullus, a man of greater poetical genius than
Callimachus, but who took the Alexandrian poet as his model
for taste and style. The prose writings of this great gram-
marian would have been very instructive from the recondite
reading in which they abounded. But they are all lost; and
his poetry fully justifies the accurate criticism of Ovid, that
his celebrity was assured, though he was distinguished by skill,
and not by genius.’

The extant poems of Callimachus are :—

(1.) Six hymns: five in hexameter verse, and in imitation
of Homer, namely, ‘To Zeus,’ ‘To Apollo,” ‘To Artemis,’ ‘To
Delos,’ and ‘To Demeter ;? and one in Doric hexameters and
pentameters, ‘On the Bath of Pallas.’ These poems are little
better than mythological scholia in ingenious and musical verse.
In the last, the poet describes rather pleasingly how Pallas in-
flicted blindness on Teiresias, who came upon her while bathing

ἀλλ᾽ ἥτις καθαρή τε καὶ dxpdavros ἀνέρπει

πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβάς, ἀκρὸν ἄωτον.

χαῖρε, ἄναξ' ὁ δὲ Μῶμος, ἵνα φθορος, ἔνθα νέοιτο.

This passage is of some importance in regard to the literary history of Calli-
machus and Apollonius. It seems from v. 67:
καὶ ὥὦὥμοσε τείχεα δώσειν

ἡμετέροις βασιλεῦσίν, ἀεὶ δ᾽ εὔορκος ᾿Απόλλων---
that the hymn to Apollo was written for the feast in honour of that God instituted
by Philadelphus (Vitruv. Pref. libr. VII.), about the time when Euergetes married
Berenice, the daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene. This would fall about the time
when Apollonius published the first part of his Argonautics, and as the poem is in-
scribed to Apollo, it may have been recited at the same feast. The criticism to
which Callimachus here replies, in an epilogue manifestly added afterwards, was
probably that of Apollonius. This is shown by the manner in which Apollonius
parodies the words of Callimachus, Argon. III. 932 sqq. :

ἀκλείης ὅδε μάντις ὅς οὐδ᾽ ὅσα παῖδες ἴσασιν

οἷδε νόῳ φράσσασθαι.
And it is not unlikely that Apollonius wrote these words at Rhodes, where he was
composing his third book, and the μείδησε δὲ Μόψος ἀκούσας (v. 938) shows that he
no longer entertained any bitter animosity against his old teacher. See Merkel
(Prol. in Apollon. pp. XII. XVIII. XIX.).

1 Amor., 15, 14:
Battiades semper toto cantabitur orbe :
Quamvis ingenio non valet, arte valet.

432 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

with her chosen companion his mother Chariclo, but consoled
him on her account with the gift of prophecy. This poem was
translated into Latin elegiac verse by the celebrated Angelo
Poliziano, who wished to be the Catullus of revived classical
Latinity.

(2.) Seventy-six epigrams, which have very considerable
merit, being in fact among the best of their kind. They are
preserved in the Anthologia, sometimes, however, attributed to
other writers, such as Simonides, Bacchylides, Leonidas of
Tarentum, or Tymnes, The 76th is preserved in a Latin
translation, and may be the production of some modern poet.
The epigrams of Callimachus were commented on by Archibius
soon after that poet’s death, and paraphrased in iambic lines
by Marianus, who flourished in the reign of Anastasius, and
performed the same office for the epic poems of Callimachus
and Apollonius, for the idyls of Theocritus, and for the
Phenomena of Aratus,

(3.) Elegies, which exist only in fragments, or in imitations
by the Roman poets. We have seen that Propertius con-
stantly couples Philetas with Callimachus, as his models, and
the great objects of his admiration. It is supposed that the
20th of Ovid’s Heroidum LEpistole is borrowed from the
Cydippe of Callimachus. ‘And it. is known that the Coma
Berenices,' which appears among the elegies of Catullus, is a
close translation, sometimes word for word,’ of a poem in which
the court poet of Alexandria recognized among the stars the
beautiful tresses, which Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy Euergetes,
had suspended in the temple in performance of a vow, but
which had been sacrilegiously abstracted. This poem, which
is perhaps the most far-fetched effort of court flattery in

1 Merkel has shown (Prolegom. ad Apollonii Argonautica, Lips. 1854, p. xii.)
that the Berenice in question was the daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene, who
was married to Ptolemy Euergetes, and that the captam Asiam Aigypti finibus
addiderat of the poem refers to the conquests of the third Ptolemy in Asia Minor,
when he founded the city of Berenice in Cilicia, and named it in honour of this
queen.

2 The following are some of the fragments of Callimachus, which correspond
exactly to the translation of Catullus :—

Idem me ille Conon ccelesti munere vidit
E Berenices vertice cesariem, ;

CALLIMACHUS. 433

existence, represents the lost tresses as describing their own
deification. They have the extravagance of Pope’s Rape of the
Lock, without its wit or consistency. Yet they attracted the
admiration of Catullus, one of the most original of the Latin
poets, and, at the revival of letters, Salviano of Florence en-
deavoured to reproduce the Greek original from the Latin
translation.

The lost writings of Callimachus included two epic poems,
the Airia and the ‘ExaXn, to which we have frequent references.
The former, which Marianus paraphrased, was an antiquarian
poem in four books, on the causes and origin of mythologies,
religious usages, and other curiosities of literature, and may be
regarded as bearing the same relation to the more general
disquisitions of Ephorus and Theopompus that the Hecale did
to the Atthis, properly so called. This latter poem, the frag-
ments of which have been submitted to a searching exami-
nation by an eminent modern scholar,’ derives its name from a
hospitable old woman,’ who entertained Theseus with supper
and mythology when he was on his way to encounter the
Marathonian bull. The work, which his contemporary Philo-

Fulgentem clare: quam multis ille Deorum
Levia protendens brachia pollicita est.
ἥ με Kovwv ἔβλεψεν ἐν ἠέρι τὸν Βερενίκης
βόστρυχον ὃν κείνη πᾶσιν ἔθηκε θεοῖς.
| Theo in Arat. Phan. 146,
Adjuro teque tuumque caput.
σήν τε κάρην ὥμοσα σόν τε βίον.
Etym. M. 450, 32.

Juppiter ut Chalybum omne genus pereat.
Zed πάτερ, ws Χαλύβων wav ἀπόλοιτο γένος.
Schol. Ap. Rh. I. 1323.
It has been supposed that the fragment in the Hiym. M.s8.v. ᾿Ασσύριοι: ἢ ἀπ᾽,
(Blomfield ji.’ ἐπ᾽), ᾿Ασσυρίων ἡμεδαπὴ στρατιὴ corresponds to the lines in Catullus:

Qua rex tempestate novo auctus hymenzo
Vastatum fines iverat Assyrios.

But the version is hardly close enough, unless we adopt the other opinion that
Catullus sometimes departed from the letter of his original; see Nike, Rhein.
Mus. 1837, p. 13.
1 A. FB. Nike in the Rheinisches Museum, 1834, pp. 509—588; 1835, pp. 509—
588; 1837, pp. I—I100.
2 On the name of Ἑ κάλη, see New Cratylus, § 276.
Vou. II. FF

434 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

chorus wrote on the Tetrapolis of Marathon, may have fur-
nished Callimachus with some of the materials for this versifi-
cation of legends. The long episode about Visv4mitra, which
Janaca tells Rama on a. similar occasion, in the Sanscrit
Epos, represents, in spirit at least, the aged Hecale’s out-
pourings of Attic lore.’ The Galatea and Glaucus were pro-
bably epic poems of a similar description. Of the tragedies,
comedies, and choliambics of Callimachus we have not a trace.
The Ibis, so called from the Egyptian bird, sacred to. Thoth
or Hermes, which was worshipped for its services in keeping
down the plague of serpents and other dangerous reptiles,?
would have furnished a chapter on the quarrels of authors. It
was written expressly against Apollonius, the quondam pupil of
Callimachus, whom his master from literary jealousy had
begun to regard with the most rancorous animosity. We
have an imitation of it in the attack which Ovid wrote under
the same title against Hyginus or some other literary opponent,

The numerous prose works of Callimachus are lost altogether,
and if they had been extant we must have reserved the con-
sideration of them to the following chapter. It is sufficient to
mention here the work, which would have been most serviceable
to us, and which was most intimately connected with the general
business of Callimachus as head of the great library at Alex-
andria. This was a sort of encyclopedia of Greek literary
history, a Catalogue Raisonné of all the books in the Alex-
andrian Bibliotheca. It extended to 120 books or rolls of
papyrus,® and was no doubt the result of the labours attributed

1 Rdmdyana, I. cc. 50-65.

2 It is difficult to see why Apollonius was called by the name of this bird, or
what reproach was involved in the designation. Its services as a scavenger were
meritorious, and its religious connexion with Hermes was eminently respectable.
There may have been some pungent irony in the appellation, just as we might
call a pedantic scholar ‘an owl,’ from the bird of Minerva. Or it may have been
intended to intimate the want of a power of judicious selection which Callimachus
seems to impute to Apollonius in the words quoted above from the epilogue to
the Hymn to Apollo:

τὰ πολλὰ
λύματα γῆς καὶ πολλὸν ἐφ᾽ ὕδατι συρφετὸν ἕλκει.

3 Suidas: πίνακες τῶν ἐν πάσῃ παιδείᾳ διαλαμψάντων καὶ ὧν συνέγραψαν ἐν βιβλίοις
κ' καὶ ρ΄. See Bernhardy, Grundriss der Griech. Literatur, I. p. 134.

LYCOPHRON. 435

to Callimachus by the author of the fragmentary scholium on
Plautus,—namely, that he wrote the titles of all the books in
the library—for this would presume that he made himself ac-
quainted with their contents. A similar work was his Museum,
which probably gave an account generally of the literary esta-
blishments of Ptolemy, and of the persons connected with them.

§ 5. Next to Callimachus, as a representative of the learned
poetry of Alexandria, we must place the dramatist and drama-
tologist, Lycorpnron. Notwithstanding his great celebrity, we
know but few particulars of his career, and, as we shall see,
some of the most eminent scholars of the present century have
raised the question whether his extant poem is not to be
referred to a later writer of the same name. Suidas informs
us that Lycophron was a native of Chalcis in Eubeea, that his .
father was Socles, and that he was adopted by Lycus of
Rhegium,’ an historian who flourished in the time of Alex-
ander’s immediate successors, and was an object of animosity
to Demetrius the Phalerian.? It is to be inferred from this
adoption that he spent some time among the Eubcean colonies ἡ
of Magna Grecia, which would account for his familiar
acquaintance with the affairs of Italy. As his adoptive father
Lycus wrote among other works a history of Libya, we may
easily conceive the manner in which Lycophron became con-
nected with the court of Alexandria. To compose such a
work, Lycus must have visited and perhaps established himself
in Egypt, and the plot against him attributed to Demetrius
would seem to imply that they were both at the court of
Ptolemy, and that the banished Athenian used his influence
with the king to procure the ruin of a rival author. Be that
as it may, we know, on the authority of the Scholium on
Plautus, which has been already cited,*® that Lycophron was

1 Suidas: Λυκόφρων Χαλκιδεὺς ἀπὸ EvdBolas, vids Σωκλέους, θέσει δὲ Λύκου τοῦ
Ῥηγίνου, γραμματικὸς καὶ ποιητὴς τραγῳδιῶν. Tzetzes, Chil. VIII. 481, says that
he was really the son of Lycus.

2 Suidas: Λύκος ὁ καὶ Bov@jpas, Ῥηγῖνος, ἱστορικός, πατὴρ Λυκόφρονος τοῦ
τραγικοῦ, ἐπὶ τῶν διαδόχων γεγονὼς καὶ ἐπιβουλευθεὶς ὑπὸ Δημητρίου τοῦ Φαληρέως.
οὗτος ἔγραψεν ἱστορίαν Λιβύης καὶ περὶ Σικελίας.

3 Scholion Plautinwm apud Ritschl, Alex. Bibl. p. 3: ‘Alexander Ζζοϊτβ et
Lycophron Chalcidensis et Zenodotus Ephesius, impulsu regis Ptolemei, Phila-
delphi cognomento, qui mirum in modum favebat ingeniis et fame doctorum

FF 2

436 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

one of the learned men employed by Ptolemy Philadelphus to
form a collection and arrangement of the Greek poets; and
while Alexander the Altolian undertook the tragedies, and
Zenodotus the poems of Homer and other illustrious poets, the
comedies were assigned to Lycophron. As a result of these
labours in the library, we are informed that he composed a
very valuable work on Greek comedy,’ abounding as it seems
in anecdotes respecting the authors, which, to judge by a
specimen in Athenzus,’ must have been lively and entertaining.
But although Lycophron wrote on comedy, his own poetical
compositions were chiefly tragic dramas. Suidas gives us a
list of twenty of these plays,’ and Tzetzes attributes to him

forty-six or sixty-four tragedies. The fragment of his Pelopide ~~

quoted by Stobzus is a simple statement of the common
thought that death, though prayed for by the unfortunate, is
never welcomed when it really comes.* He also wrote a
satyrical drama called Menedemus, in which he makes his
eminent countryman, the head of the school of Eretria, appear
in the character of a temperate Silenus, teaching the doctrines
of total abstinence to a chorus of Satyrs. The caricature
must have been received by the philosopher as good-natured
and friendly criticism, for we are told that he was very fond of
Lycophron.’ By these compositions, Lycophron obtained a
place in the pleiad of Alexandrian tragedians, and his name

hominum, Greece artis poeticos libros in anum collegerunt et in ordinem redegerunt ;
Alexander tragoedias, Lycophron comeedias, Zenodotus vero Homeri poemata ei
reliquorum illustrium poetarum.’

1 See Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com, Gr. p. 100,

2 XIII. p. 555.

3 They are the Molus, Andromeda, Aletes, Molides, Elephenor, Hercules, Sup-
plices, Hippolytus, Cassandreis, Laius, Marathonii, Nauplius, Cdipus I. I1.,
Orbus, Pentheus, Pelopide, Socti, Telegonus, Chrysippus.

* Stob. Flor. 119, 13:

ἀλλ᾽ ἡνίκ᾽ ἂν μὲν ἢ πρόσω τὸ κατθανεῖν
ἅδης ποθεῖται τοῖς δεδυστυχηκόσιν.

ὅταν δ᾽ ἐφέρπῃ κῦμα λοίσθιον βίου

τὸ ζῆν ποθοῦμεν" οὐ γάρ ἐστ᾽ αὐτοῦ κόρος.

5 See Athen. X. p. 420.

6 Diog, Laért. II. p. 177 C: ἠσπάζετο δὲ καὶ "Ἄρατον καὶ Λυκόφρονα τὸν τῆς
τραγῳδίας ποιητήν.

LYCOPHRON. 437

appears in all the lists along with Homerus and Philiscus.'
His ingenuity was shown by the composition of anagrams, two
of them being the conversion of Πτολεμαῖος into ἀπὸ μέλιτος,
and of ᾿Αρσινόη into ἴον Ἥρας," complimentary transpositions
which were highly appreciated by the courtiers. All the works
of Lycophron are lost with the exception of the oracular poem
called Alexandra or Cassandra; in 1474 regular tragic
trimeters, which has obtained for its author and itself the
name of ‘the dark or obscure’ (Λυκόφρων ὁ σκοτεινός, τὸ
σκοτεινὸν ποίημα). The dates of the birth and death of Lyco-
phron are equally unknown. Ovid, in the Jbis, which he wrote
in imitation of Callimachus, intimates that Lycophron was
assassinated by being shot through the heart with an arrow,’
but why or by whom we are not told.

There is no poem of the Alexandrian school which has been
more honoured by the attention of ancient and modern scholars
that the Alexandra of Lycophron. The great number of the
manuscripts shows that it has always been in demand, and it
may have been adopted at one period as a text-book of
mythology and geography. An epigram intimates that it was

1 The following are the four different versions of the Pleiad :

Suidas. Schol. I. Schol. II. Tzetzes.
Homerus Homerus Homerus (Theocritus)
Sositheus Sositheus Sositheus (Aratus)
Lycophron Lycophron Lycophron (Nicander)
Alexander Alexander Alexander antides
Philiscus Philiscus Hantides Philiscus
Sosiphanes Dionysides Sosiphanes Homerus

Zantides Philiscus Lycophron

See Clinton, Κ΄. H. 111. p. 502.
2 See the note in the appendix to Dehéque’s edition and translation of the
Alexandra, Paris, 1853 (pp. 68, 69).
3° Adetdvipa is the only name known to the ancients, Cassandra being a modern
corruption.
4 Suidas, Hence Statius says (Silv. III. 5, 156):
Tu pandere doctus
Carmina Battiade tenebrasque Lycophronis atri.
5 Ibis, 531:
Utque cothurnatum cecidisse Lycophrona narrant,
Hereat in fibris fixa sagitta tuis.
5 Boissonade, Biogr. Universelle 8. τι. LycopHron. Canter says (in Lycophr.
Prolegom. p. VI.) : ‘ affirmare ausim, quicunque hoc poema, licet parvum, diligenter

438 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

caviar to the multitude.' And besides the scholia of Duris,
Theon, and Orus, it has been voluminously commented on by
John Tzetzes. Since the revival of letters, it has been fre-
quently re-edited, and in England it was published in Greek
at the beginning of the eighteenth century by one of our most
learned archbishops,? and was translated into harmonious
English verse, about fifty years ago, by an accomplished young
nobleman.* Notwithstanding this celebrity, the identity of
the author is still a matter of doubt. For while Aristotle
attributes to a rhetorical sophist of his own time, who bore the
same name, a love of compound and glossematic words exactly
like those which we find in Lycophron the poet,’ Lord Royston,’
our great orator C. J. Fox,’ and the historian Niebuhr,’ have
argued, from certain allusions to Rome and Macedon in the
Alexandra itself, that it could not have been written in the
reign of Philadelphus, but must have proceeded from some
author who wrote after the downfal of Perseus at the latter
end of Ol. 152, B.c. 169. To these objections another eminent
scholar, F. G. Welcker of Bonn, has replied by the suggestion,

perlegerint, eos et historiarum et poeticarum fabularum partem non exiguam probe
perfecteque esse cognituros.’
1 Anthol. Pal. IX. 191: els τὴν βίβλον Λυκόφρονοο----

el δέ ce φίλατο Κ αλλίοπη λάβε μ᾽ és xépas’ ef δὲ
νῆϊς ἔφυς Μουσέων, χερσὶ βάρος φορέεις.

2 Curd et Opera Joannis Potteri, Oxonii, 1697 and 1702.

3 ‘Cassandra, translated from the original Greek of Lycophron, and illustrated
with notes, by Viscount Royston, Cambridge, 1806.’ The translator perished
in the Maelstroom a year or two after the publication of this version, which
does the greatest credit to his learning and poetical talents. There are few
translations of Greek poets into English which exhibit a greater command of
language, or a more sustained power of versification. We have a copy in-
cluding some of the proof sheets, which show with what carefulness the author
revised his work.

4 Rhet. 111. 3, 1—3.

5 In the Classical Jowrnal, vol. XIII. No. 25, XIV. No. 27, and in the preface
to his translation.

6 Correspondence of Wakefield and Fox, published in 1813. Fox states the
objection first in a letter dated 12th March, 1800 (p, 129), and gives his conclusion
the 26th Jan., 1801 (p. 171).

7 Rheinisches Musewm, 1827, pp. 108—117.

LYCOPHRON. 439

that the passages in question are probably interpolations.
‘Tf, he says,’ ‘interpolations may be expected anywhere, a long
oracular poem is the most probable place for them; and if any
subject could lead to the continuation of such prophecies,
surely the morning-dawn of the empire of the world would be
most likely to do so.’ Without entering at length into the
controversy, we may be permitted to say that certain inflexions
and forms of words in the Alexandra? indicate rather a
Hellenist of the later Alexandrian school, who wrote according
to new-fangled analogies, than a Greek fresh from the Eubcean
colonies of Italy, and from the study of the best Attic come-
dians. On the other hand, there is nothing to have prevented
an attentive observer, who had been in the south of Italy in
the interval between the invasion of Pyrrhus and the first
Punic war, from drawing a formidable picture of the increasing
power of Rome. If then the original edition of the Alexandra,
which is universally attributed to Lycophron of Chalcis, con-
tained any references to the prowess of the Romans, whom
Leonidas of Tarentum had called ‘invincible’ in B.c. 279,
the later editors of the work, whose hands are indicated by the
grammatical peculiarities to which we have referred, would feel
an irresistible temptation to add some prophecies after the
event to the ominous presages of the contemporary of Phila-
delphus, That the prophecies referring to the glory of Rome,*
and the downfal of Macedon,* are such additions, is shown
by the fact that the former is inserted after the account of

1 Die Griech. Trag. pp. 1259—1263.

2 Such as ἐσχάζοσαν for ἔσχαζον (v. 21), πέφρικαν for πεφρίκασιν (v. 252), &e.,
which belong to the language of the Septuagint: see Sturz, de Dialect. Maced. et
Alexandrind, p. 58.

3 In the inscription on the spoils taken in the battles of Heraclea and Asculum,
B.C. 280, 279, which is preserved in Latin Saturnians. See Niebuhr, H, &, III.
note 841, and Varronianus, p. 228, ed. 2; where an attempt is made to reproduce
the original.

4 vv. 1226—1280. The reference to the δίπτυχοι τόκοι Μυσῶν ἄνακτος, Τάρχων
τε καὶ Tuponvos (1245—1248), indicates a considerable knowledge of the ethnography
of Italy, and is quite in accordance with the present writer’s theory as to the
distinct origin of the Etruscans and Tyrsenians: see Varronianus, p. 71, and
elsewhere.

5 vv. 1446—1450.

440 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POBTS.

the disasters of Idomeneus and his family, and before the
lines :-—’

Such woes, so hard to bear, shall they endure

Who soon will devastate my native land.

And the definite reference to the overthrow of Perseus as sixth
in descent from Alexander’ is the close of the poem, where such
an addition would naturally be appended.

With regard to the poetical merits of this extraordinary
production, the most diverse opinions have been expressed,
The German critics will not allow it to be called a poem, One
of them® terms it ‘a grammatical monster, in which a store-
house of nomenclature, consisting in mythical and geographical
names of rare occurrence, in glossematical words from Aischylus
and other poets, and in bombastic compounds, is employed,
without any gain to mythology,’ and tells us that it has no
spirit, and cannot be read with any pleasure; and Niebuhr
thinks that the word ‘ poem’ would be misapplied in speaking
of the Alexandra.* On the other hand, a great English orator
is soothed by its melancholy strain, and an eminent scholar
reads it again and again with increasing gratification : and we
have an English version of it, which, if it is obscure and

1 y, 1281:
τοσαῦτα μὲν δύστλητα πείσονται κακά
οἱ τὴν ἐμὴν μέλλοντες αἰστώσειν πάτραν.

2 See Lord Royston’s Preface, p. X., where the six generations are counted from
Alexander the Great, in the persons of the five lineal descendants of Antigonus,
namely, Demetrius, Antigonus Gonatas, Demetrius II., Philip V., Perseus.
Dehtque counts 207 years from the expedition of Xerxes, B.c. 480, to the treaty
between the Romans and Ptolemy Philadelphus, in B.c. 273, to which he thinks
the six generations refer.

3 Bernhardy, Grundriss d. Gr. Lit. II. p. 1027. :

4 Rhein. Mus. 1827, p. 112. Schlegel calls the Alexandra, ‘einen endlosen,
weissagenden mit dunkler Mythologie iiberladenen Monolog,’ and Wachler terms
it, ‘ ein verkiinstelt-dunkles prophetisch-episches Monodrama.’

5 Gilbert Wakefield says, in a letter to Charles James Fox (u.s. p. 120):
‘Lycophron by all means read—a spirit of melancholy breathes through his
poem, which makes him, with his multitude of events, as delightful to me as
any of the ancients. I have read him very often, and always with additional
gratification. His poem is delivered in the form of a prophecy, and therefore
affects an enigmatical obscurity by enveloping the sentiment in imagery, mytho-
logical allusions, and a most learned and elaborate phraseology. You cannot fail,
I think, after the first difficulties are surmounted, to like him very much.’ Fox
replies (p. 128): ‘I have lately read Lycophron, and am much obliged to you for

LYCOPHRON. 44ϊ

enigmatical like the original Greek, is at least conceived in
the highest elevation of poetical language. We are not able to
compare the poem with the Αἴτια of Callimachus and other
versifications of mythology, but it appears to us. that for the
kind of thing which it pretends to be, and for the special
taste which it was intended to gratify, it is neither an unskilful
nor an unpleasing composition. The oracular obscurity was of
course intentional; and it afforded, no doubt, considerable
amusement to the ingenious scholars of Alexandria to interpret
familiar allusions clothed in enigmatic phraseology. The poem
begins with a few lines addressed to Priam by the guard whom
he had set over Cassandra, in which there is an apology for the
length of the predictions. And then we have in Cassandra’s
own words the prophecy which she uttered when Paris was
setting sail for Greece. This prophecy begins with a reference
to the exploits of Hercules, whose Pheenician mythology was
not unknown to the poet. It passes on to the history of
the Trojan war and its immediate results in the wanderings
and other misfortunes of the Greek leaders. It then reverts
to the old legends of enmity between Asia and Europe, of which
the Trojan war was a special development, and the counter-
invasions of Xerxes and Alexander the final consummation.
After all this, Cassandra checks herself abruptly with the re-
flexion that no one will believe her presages. And the poem
concludes with a prayer from the guard on behalf of his master’s

house :—
But oh! may all these woes be turned to joy !
Still may the God who watches o’er thy house
Spread round thy bosom his protecting shield,
And guard with arms divine the Phrygian throne!

On the whole, we are inclined to think that Lycophron has
left us a favourable specimen of the versified and diversified
learning, which delighted the courtiers of Ptolemy Philadelphus.

§ 6. The Alexandrian poets, whom we have hitherto dis-
cussed—Philetas of Cos, Callimachus of Cyrene, and Lycophron
of Chalcis—were foreigners attracted to Alexandria by the

recommending me to do so; besides there being some very charming poetry in
him, the variety of stories is very entertaining.’ And in another letter he says
(p. 137): ‘to my mind nothing was ever more soothing, in the melancholy strain,
than many passages in Lycophron,’

4492 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

literary fame of the city and the prospect of royal patronage.
We now pass on to one who was a native Alexandrian, educated
in the Museum, and brought up in the philosophic court circle
of Philadelphus, but compelled by the jealousy and ill-will of
Callimachus to leave his native place, and not welcomed back
again until he had achieved a reputation in the distant island
which has given him his usual epithet. Arozionivs, generally
known as ‘ the Rhodian,’ was the son of Silleus or Ileus of
Alexandria, where he was born some time in Ol. 126, 127,
B.C. 276—269, being a contemporary of Eratosthenes, whom
he ultimately succeeded in the librariauship. Athenzus calls
him ‘the Rhodian or Naucratite,' and is followed by Ailian.
The former collector may have had no other reason for con-
necting Apollonius with his own city Naucratis than the fact
that the poet wrote a book on the foundation of that place,
from which Atheneus is quoting in the particular passage.
This would be an equally good reason for assigning him to
Caunus or Canopus, for he wrote on the origin of those cities
also. It is expressly stated that Apollonius was not only an
Alexandrian,’ but belonged to the tribe called Ptolemais in that
city.“ He was a scholar of Callimachus; but it appears that
some early misunderstanding between the teacher and his pupil
soon developed itself into a deadly quarrel between them. The
particulars are not known to us, and we are left to the con-
clusion, which is supported by incidental statements, that the
younger poet either rejected the dictation of the veteran critic,
or excited his jealousy by attempting a more ambitious style of
poetry, or entered into direct rivalry with him by reciting his
Argonautica at a feast of Apollo, for which Callimachus had
prepared his own hymn to that god.’ There are many examples
in the history of literature of this opposition between the head
of a school and some prominent disciple; and we have seen in
the case of Aristotle that there is a tendency to impute this
feeling of conscious rivalry even when it does not exist—a
proof, at least, that the antagonism is not considered unnatural.

1 Athen. VII. 283 Ὁ: ᾿Απολλώνιος ὁ ‘Pddios ἢ Navxparirns ἐν Navxpdrews
κτίσει.

2 Hist, Anim. XV. 3. 3 Strabo XIV. p. 655.

4 Suidas, . δ Above, p. 431 [271] note.

APOLLONIUS. 443

As far as we can judge from the few circumstances known to
us, the quarrel between Callimachus and Apollonius originated
in some discrepancy of opinion with regard to the subjects and
mode of treatment best suited for epic poetry. The chief effort
of Callimachus in this field was his poem called Atria; and an
epigram attributed to Apollonius is still extant, in which a
most abusive reference is made to this work of the older poet.’
On the other hand, Apollonius had selected for his subject one
which admitted of a more purely Homeric treatment, and in
which the book-learning of the Alexandrian school would
become subservient to the elaboration of a well-known and in-
teresting story. The antagonistic principles of the younger poet
were perhaps exhibited in the familiar discussions of the Museum
with little deference to the veteran librarian who guided the taste
of the court and of the city. And when Apollonius published his
poem in the usual way, namely, by a public recitation of it, and
in this particular instance, at a feast of Apollo,’ it was probably by
the influence of Callimachus that it was condemned and rejected.
The young poet was so mortified by this failure, and his literary
prospects so blighted by the ill-will and opposition of the head
of the Alexandrian school and his partizans, that he left his
native city and established himself as a teacher of rhetoric in
the island of Rhodes, which was in some sort a rival to
Alexandria as a seat of learning. Here his genius and attain-
ments were adequately appreciated, and he became the most
renowned man of letters in his adopted country. The Rhodians
honoured him with the full franchise and some other distinctions

1 Anthol. Pal. XI. 275: ᾿Απολλωνίου γραμματικοῦ----
Καλλίμαχος τὸ κάθαρμα, τὸ παίγνιον, ὁ ξύλινος νοῦς,
αἴτιος, ὁ γράψας Αἴτια Καλλιμάχου.
Merkel supposes very ingeniously (Proleg. ad Apollon. p. XXI.), that Apollonius
here uses the word κάθαρμα, in the sense of ‘mythological rubbish’ (Niebuhr,
H, R. ΤΙ, p. το), and with a playful reference to the word κάταργμα, which, as he
conjectures, may have been used in the Αἴτια, as the ἄκρος dwres of the Hymn to
Apollo, v. 112, cf. Hiym. M. p. 53,1. 53. The fourth book of the Aira treated of
rites and usages ; among these may have been the ἐπικρήνια (ἑορτὴ Δήμητρος παρὰ
Λάκωσιν, Hesych.), to his treatment of which Callimachus perhaps alludes in the
epilogue to Hymn to Apollo, 110:
Δηοῖ δ᾽ οὐκ ἀπὸ παντὸς ὕδωρ φορέουσι μέλισσαι.
2 Above, p. 431 [271], note.

444 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

—perhaps a seat in their senate—and he took from thenceforth
the name of Rhodian. It is expressly stated that he revised
and considerably improved the epic poem, which was so ill
received at Alexandria, but there is no doubt that in plan and
conception it was substantially the same, and it still retains
the dedication to Apollo, which was probably due to the
recitation of the poem at the feast of Apollo, instituted by
Philadelphus, when Apollonius and Callimachus were brought
into rivalry with one another.’ From his independent position
in the island of Rhodes he was enabled to make Callimachus
feel the effects of his vindictive criticism. The old poet retorted
by an obscure and scurrilous poem, in which he assailed Apol-
lonius as an 7018. or devourer of reptiles and vermin,’ and showed
by more than one incidental allusion how he smarted under
the blows of his rival, and feared the posthumous consequences
of his detraction. The established reputation, which Apollonius
gained by his epic poem, led to his recall or voluntary return
to Alexandria. This was certainly after the death of Calli-
machus, perhaps not till the reign of Epiphanes, when the
librarianship again became vacant by the decease of Eratosthenes,
whom Apollonius was appointed to succeed in B.c, 194. How
long he held this office, and when he died, we are not informed.
He was most probably librarian at the time of his death, about
Ol. 147, 4. B.c. 193—18g; and, according to one account, was
buried in the same tomb as Callimachus.

Apollonius wrote grammatical works ‘ on Archilochus,’* and
‘against Zenodotus,’* and a number of poems relating to the
foundations (κτίσεις) of various cities. That ‘on Canopus’
seems to have been composed in choliambic verse.’ Of his
epigrams we have only the one on Callimachus, which has been

1 See above, p. 431 [271], note.

2 On the title of this poem Merkel remarks (Prolegom. in Apollon. p. XXI.):
‘ scriptam olim conjiciebam, quo tempore Apollonius Rhodii cognomen adsumpsisset,
quod biographus testatur, p. 532, 27: ut Callimachus patriam minus illustrem
Naucratin ei objecerit.’ As we have already mentioned, the reference to
Naucratis as the birthplace of Apollonius is probably due to the wish on the part
of Athenzus to claim the poet for his own native place, and the Jbis would not
refer him to Naucratis rather than any other Egyptian town.

3 Athen. X. p. 451, D. . 4 Schol. JU. 7, 657.

5 See Steph. Byz. s.vy. χώρα, Κόρινθος.

APOLLONIUS. 445

already cited. His reputation depends on his epic poem ‘on
the Argonautic expedition’ ( Αργοναυτικά) in four books, of
which the fourth is the longest, and containing altogether 5835
lines. This poem has come down to us complete,—indeed,
with traces of its two distinct recensions by the author,'—and
illustrated by elaborate scholia of a very early date, which are
a repertorium of information on many points of antiquarian
interest. Apollonius could hardly have chosen a better subject
for a poem, which was to combine the properties of the old
epos with an opportunity for displaying the erudition of an
Alexandrian scholar. The fourth Pythian ode of Pindar had
developed some of the epic qualities of the Argonautic
legend, and had connected it with the establishment of a Greek
colony at Cyrene. And it was perhaps on this account, among
others, that Callimachus resented the choice of such a subject
by his scholar, when he had himself neglected or declined to
commemorate the legendary glories of his own family. Be-
sides having a good love-story, and a plentiful supply of super-
natural incidents, the expedition of the Argonauts enabled a
learned poet to introduce any amount of geographical or mytho-
logical episodes. The heroes themselves belonged to a period
immediately preceding the Trojan war, in which their sons took
a prominent part, and had appeared in the old epic, lyric, and
dramatic poems of the classical period. And their popularity at
Alexandria is indicated hy the use which Theocritus has made
of some of their adventures. The subject, then, in spite of
Callimachus, could not fail to be attractive; and it cannot be
denied, that Apollonius has treated it with considerable skill,
and, all things considered, with wonderful freedom from affec-
tation.” The language is the conventional epic style founded
on a careful study of Homer, whose words are not always used

1 This subject has been fully discussed by Gerhard, Lectiones Apolloniane,
Lip. 1816. See also Bernhardy, Grundriss, II. pp. 235 sqq.

2 Our great orator, Charles James Fox, had a high opinion of Apollonius. When
he had only read a portion of the Argonautica, he wrote to Wakefield (u. s. p. 109) :
‘from what I have read, he seems to be held far too low by Quintilian [X.
I, ὃ 54], nor can 1 think the equalis mediocritas to be his character.’ What he had
read appeared to him ‘as fine poetry as can be.’ And when he had studied the
whole poem, and compared it with the imitations by Virgil and Ovid (p. 194), he
was still able to say (p. 211): ‘there are some parts of Apollonius, such as Lib.

446 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

in their original signification, as it has been established by the
researches of modern philologers. The effect is much the
same as if an English poet of the nineteenth century were to
undertake a poem in the style of Chaucer, or, to adduce an
actual case, it was the same as if Chatterton had published his
forgeries in his own name instead of assuming that of the old
monk Rowley. Apollonius has the usual fault of imitative
poets—a liability to artificial exaggeration, instead of that
natural wonder which belongs to an earlier form of civilization.’
For example, no ancient Epopceist would have said of Jason’s
cloak that the eye could easier gaze on the noontide sun than
on its brilliant scarlet. Such an exaggeration would have been
reserved by Homer for the blaze of golden armour wrought by
Vulcan.* There is great inequality in the delineation of cha-
racter. The impersonation of Jason, who is the hero of the
piece, is very indistinct; but the love of Medea is painted in
very vivid colours, and nothing can be prettier or more natural
than the embarrassment of the maiden, when she is left alone
with her lover in the temple of Hecate;* and there is exquisite
tenderness in the passage where she tells Jason how she shall
think of him when he is far away, and how she will know, by
some instinct or omen, whether he remembers his deliverer.’
There is also a good rough trait of Hercules, when the heroes
look to him as their leader, and he tells them that the man
who mustered the crew ought to be captain ;° and the sulkiness

III. from 453 to 463, and from 807 to 816, that appear to me unrivalled.’ Lon-
ginus calls him ἄπτωτος (De Subl. XXXIII. 4). ,
1 We find special examples of this in the florid rhetoric of Lucan. What Homeric
hero would have been made to act like the historical Sceeva? (Pharsal. VI. 217.)
2 Argon. I. 725, 6:
THs μὲν ῥηΐτερόν κεν és ἠέλιον ἀνιόντα
ὄσσε βάλοις ἢ κεῖνο μεταβλέψειας ἔρευθος.
8. Iliad XVI. 70, XVIII. ότο.
4 Argonaut. III. 962—965, 1008 sqq.
5 Ibid. 1109 sqq. :
ἀλλ᾽ οἷον τυνὴ μὲν ἐμεῦ, ὅτ᾽ Τωλκὸν ἵκηαι,
μνώεο, σεῖο δ᾽ ἐγὼ καὶ ἐμῶν ἀέκητι τοκήων
μνήσομαι" ἔλθοι ὃ ἡμὶν ἀπόπροθεν ἠέ τις ὅσσα,
ἦέ τις ἄγγελος ὄρνις ὅτ᾽ ἐκλελάθοιο ἐμεῖο.
61,343:
ὁ δ᾽ αὐτόθεν, ἔνθα περ ἧστο
δεξιτέρην ἀνὰ χεῖρα τανύσσατο φώνησέν τε"

EUPHORION, RHIANUS, NICANDER. 447

of Idas is well described.’ The poem is full of epigrammatic
prettinesses and neatly turned commonplaces; as when he
expresses the trite sentiment that mortal joy is ever mixed
with anxiety,’ or when he paints, in a few touches, the stillness
of night. He sometimes rises to a higher strain, as when he
makes Medea meditate on suicide* and combat the thought
with reflections on the sweets of life,’ in a strain not altogether
unworthy of a great dramatist. On the whole, we are not dis-
posed to underrate this effort of the Alexandrian school, and
we think that it deserves more attention than has been paid to
it by classical students in this country. The value which was
set upon the work by the ancients is shown by the antiquity of
the scholia, which are derived from nearly contemporary com-
mentaries by Lucillus of Tarra, Sophocles, and Theon,® and
by the attempts to translate or imitate the poem which were
made by the learned Romans P. Terentius Varro Atacinus,
and Valerius Flaccus. At a later period Marianus para-
phrased the poem in iambic trimeters.

Evrnorton of Chalcis and Ruranus of Crete, who obtained
considerable reputation as epic poets, and represented the prin-
ciples and taste of the Alexandrian school, though the former
does not appear to have visited the city of the Ptolemies, have
not left any adequate specimens of their writings. We have
two specimens of didactic versification from the pen of NicanDER
of Colophon, who lived in the reigns of Ptolemy Epiphanes
and the last Attalus (B.c. 185, 135).

Rhianus and Euphorion flourished in the latter part of the
third century B.c., and were, therefore, contemporaries of Era-

‘uh τις ἐμοὶ τόδε κῦδος drdfeTw’ οὐ yap ἔγωγε
πείσομαι, ὥστε καὶ ἄλλον ἀναστήσεσθαι ἐρύξω.
αὐτός, ὅτις συγάγειρε, καὶ ἀρχεύοι ὁμάδοιο.᾽
11, 462 sqq., ITI. 556 sqq.
2 IV. 1165 sqq. :
ἀλλὰ γὰρ οὔποτε φῦλα δυηπαθέων ἀνθρώπων
τερπωλῆς ἐπέβημεν ὅλῳ ποδί" σὺν δέ τις αἰεὶ
πικρὴ παρμέμβλωκεν ἐϊφροσύνῃσιν avin.
8 ΤΙ], 746—750. 4 Ibid. III. 771 sqq.
5 Tbid. 111, 811 sqq.
6 Vit. Apollon.: παράκειται τὰ σχόλια ἐκ τῶν τοῦ Λουκίλχου Ταῤῥαίου καὶ Dodo-
κλέους καὶ Θέωνος. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 397. Steph. Byz. s. vv. “ABapvos,
Κάναστρον.

448 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

tosthenes. The former was an epic poet’ of the same kind as
Panyasis, whom he probably imitated in his Heracleia, a poem
of mythological incidents in fourteen books. His Achaica in
four books, his Eiiaca in three books at least, his Thessalica in
sixteen books, and his Messeniaca in about six books, were
historical romances in verse, and the latter especially kept so
close to the facts that Pausanias appeals to it as an authority.’
Rhianus has left eleven epigrams of an erotic character which
are extremely elegant and vivacious. He was also a commen-
tator on Homer. Euphorion was born in 274 8.c., and, after
spending the best part of his life at Athens, where he became
very opulent, entered the service of Antiochus the Great as
librarian, and died at Apamea in Syria, or, according to some
writers, at Antioch. We have some twenty titles of works
written by him,’ including mythological epics, satirical or con-
troversial poems like the [dis of Callimachus,’ and elegiac poems
of an amatory kind, which were imitated in Latin by Proper-
tius and Tibullus, and in Greek by the Emperor Tiberius,* and
at a later period by Nonnus, and were very popular at Rome
in Cicero’s time.’ Like his countryman Lycophron, Euphorion
was considered eminently obscure,* and encumbered by the

1 Atheneus calls him ‘Piavds ὁ ἐποποίος (XI. p. 499 D).

2 IV. 1, § 6, 6, ὃ 2, 15, ὃ 2, esp. 17, § 11: δηλοῖ καὶ τάδε ὑπὸ ‘Pravod πεποιη-
μένα ἐς τοὺς Aaxedarpovlous—

οὔρεος ἀργεννοῖο περὶ πτύχας ἐστρατόωντο
χείματά τε ποίας τε δύω καὶ εἴκοσι πάσαΞε---
χειμῶνας γὰρ καὶ θέρη κατέλεξε, ποίας εἰπὼν τὸν χλωρὸν σῖτον καὶ ὀλίγον πρὸ ἀμητοῦ.

3 Suidas, 5. v.

4 There is a full account of Euphorion’s writings in Meineke, De Euphorionis
Vité et Scriptis, Gedani, 1823.

5 Of this class the most important were his dpal, ἢ ποτηριοκλέπτης, which sug-
gested the Dire of Cato and Virgil, his χιλιάδες, which probably supplied the name
of the well-known collection of John Tzetzes, and the ἀντιγραφαὶ πρὸς Oewpliav
(or Θεοδωρίδαν), which is supposed to have been part of a grammatical controversy
in verse.

6 Suetonius says (Tiber. 70): ‘fecit et Greeca poemata imitatus et Euphorionem
et Rhianum et Parthenium, quibus poetis admodum delectatus, scripta eorum et
imagines publicis bibliothecis inter veteres et preecipuos auctores dedicavit.’

7 Cic. Tuse. Disp. III. το, § 45; of Ennius: “Ὁ poetam egregium, quamquam
ab his cantoribus Euphorionis contemnitur.’

8 Id. De Divin. IT. 64, ὃ 132: ‘poeta nimis obscurus. At non Homerus. Uter
igitur melior ὃ

THE BUCOLIC POETS. 449

excessive ventilation of his learning. In the epigram, which
we have already quoted from Crates of Mallus,’ Euphorion is
described as an imitator of Cheerilus, and, if the reading sug-
gested is correct, of Philetas also. His prose works were chiefly
on antiquarian and grammatical subjects.

Nicander was a medical man and naturalist, and his poems
have no value except as contributions to the history of these
branches of science.? Besides a number of works in prose
and verse, which are known to us only by their titles and
some fragments, he wrote two poems which are still extant,
one in 630 lines on the remedies for poisons (᾿Αλεξιφάρμακα),
and one on the bites of venomous beasts (Θηριακά) in 958 lines.

§ 7. Of all the writers of the Alexandrian school, the bucolic
poets have enjoyed the most universal and permanent popu-
larity. The first beginnings of pastoral poetry among the
Greeks are to be sought in the primitive life of the shepherds
and husbandmen, especially in those countries which fell under
the dominion of the Dorian tribes; and it assumed a definite
form in Laconia, where it was connected with the worship of
the Doric Artemis, and in Sicily, where this goddess was
honoured by special festivals at Tyndaris and Syracuse.®
Epicharmus had mentioned the bucolic strains of the Sicilian
shepherds,‘ and Stesichorus had given a lyric form to this
species of poetry. But this was rather an application or
accommodation of the thing than its genuine or natural con-
dition. Bucolic poetry, as it exhibits itself in Greek literature,
cannot be reduced strictly under any one of the three heads
of epic, lyric, or dramatic poetry. It appeared originally as a
set of alternating strains sung in rivalry by the shepherds, who
were candidates for the rustic prize, and these amoebean poems
(ἀμοιβαῖαι ἀοιδαί), as they were called, are not only reproduced

1 Above, p. 425 [265].

2 Plutarch says of Nicander, Empedocles, and Parmenides, that the verse is but
a vehicle for the prose of their thoughts (De audiendis Poetis, p. 61, Wytt.).

3 See Miiller, Dorians, IV. 6, ὃ το. Bernhardy, Grundriss, II. p. 925.

4 Athen. XIV., p. 619 B: Δίομος δ᾽ ἣν ὁ βούκολος Σικελιώτης ὁ πρῶτος εὑρὼν τὸ
εἶδος" μνημονεύει δ᾽ αὐτοῦ Ἐπίχαρμος év‘ Αλκυόνι καὶ ἐν ᾿Οδυσσεῖ ναναγῷ.

5 Mlian, V. Η. X. τ8. Stesichorus wrote a pastoral poem called Δάφνις ; Theo-
critus, VII. 72 ; see above, ch. XIV. ὃ 6, p. 202.

Vou. II. GG

450 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

among the most polished compositions of this class, but were,
till lately, extant in some parts of Southern Italy and Sicily.’
As we have it in the writers whom we are about to examine,
the bucolic poem is generally epic in metre, Doric in dialect,
dramatic in form, and elegiac or erotic in character. Thus it
combined the characteristic refinements of the artificial poetry
of Alexandria with subjects and a mode of treatment borrowed
from the fresh green pastures and wooded mountains of Sicily ;
and we can readily imagine what a charm this must have had
for the courtiers and citizens of Alexandria, hemmed in as they
were between two seas, and having no access to rural scenery.
‘One can well conceive,’ says an able English writer,’ ‘ the
delight which’ this bucolic poetry ‘must have given to those
dusty Alexandrians, pent up for ever between sea and sandhills,
drinking the tank-water, and never hearing the sound of a
running stream, whirling, too, for ever in all the bustle and
intrigue of a great commercial and literary city. Refreshing,
indeed, it must have been to them to hear of those simple joys
and simple sorrows of the Sicilian shepherd, in a land where
toil was but exercise, and mere existence was enjoyment.’ To
this we must add, that the bucolic poetry of the Alexandrians
was dressed out in the court colours; and though the shep-
herds and shepherdesses did not appear in the drawing-room
attire of the ladies and gentlemen of Watteau’s pictures, their
language and sentiments are those which breathe in the refined
elegiacs of Philetas or Asclepiades, and in the love scenes of
Apollonius; and the Doric is just broad enough to give a zest
to the elegancies-of the metre and diction. These pastoral
poems were called by a name significant of their pictorial and
descriptive character—Idyls (εἴδη, εἰδύλλια)," i.e., little pictures
of common life, a name for which the later writers have some-
times substituted the term Eclogues (ἐκλογαῖ), i.e., “ selections,’
a name applicable to any short poem, whether complete and

1 Swinburn’s Travels in Sicily, I. p. 480. Riedesel’s Reise nach Sicilien und
Grossgriechenl., p. 175, quoted by Pauly, I. p. 1188.

2 Kingsley, Alecandria and her Schools, p. 46.

3 Ἐϊδύλλιον is a diminutive of εἶδος, which might signify a poem like the odes of
Pindar: εἰδύλλιον λέγεται ὅτι εἶδός ἐστιν, ὁποῖόν ἐστι NOyos* ὑποκοριστικῶς δὲ εἴρηται
εἰδύλλιον, Prolegom. in Theor. ,

THEOCRITUS. 451

original, or appearing as an elegant extract... The Jdyl, or
‘picture poem,’ is a refinement of the old mimes of Sophron,
being both descriptive and dramatic, and appearing as a little
drama in a framework of narrative. Now and then we have a
bright burst of merry humour ;? here and there we listen to the
melancholy strains of a dirge or a lover’s elegy;* but the general
effect is warm and sunny, or fresh with the cool breezes which
play at eventide among the rustling leaves. Such is the poetry
which made Theocritus a favourite both with Hiero and
Ptolemy ; which Virgil imitated in his choicest hexameters
under Augustus; and which we still read with undiminished
enjoyment.

Tueocritus, who gives his name to the most important of
the extant bucolic poems, is said by Suidas to have been the
son of Praxagoras and Philinna of Syracuse,* and this is con-
firmed by an epigram attributed to him, and by Moschus.’
According to another account, he was a native of Cos, and
only a resident at Syracuse, and his father’s name was not
Praxagoras, but Simichidas or Simichus. This statement has
perhaps no better foundation than an inference from the
apparent fact that Theocritus resided in Cos as a pupil of
Philetas, and from the language of the seventh idyl, which is
narrated in the person of one Simichidas of Cos. It is not at
all improbable that Theocritus may have called himself by the
pastoral name Simichus or Simichidas with reference to the
σιμότης of the goat,® just as Virgil represents himself as a

1 The term ἐκλογὴ is applied primarily to the short passage considered as an
extract (Athen. XIV. p. 663 C: ἔχει δὴ ἡ σύμπασα ἐκλογὴ οὕτως) ; but it also
denotes the shortness of the passage, whether prose or verse, without any reference
to the idea of selection or borrowing ; see Suetonius, Vita Horat. p. 50, ed. F. A.
Wolf.

2 As in Theocritus, Jd. X. 38 sqq. 3 As in Theocritus, Jd. I. 64 sqq.

4 Θεόκριτος, IIpataydpou καὶ Φιλίννης" of δὲ Σιμμίχου, Συρακούσιος" οἱ δέ φασι
ἘΚ ῴον, μετῴκησε δὲ ἐν Συρακούσαις.

5 Epigr. 22:

ἄλλος ὁ Χῖος" ἐγὼ δὲ Θεόκριτος ὃς τάδ᾽ ἔγραψα
εἷς ἀπὸ τῶν πολλῶν εἰμὶ Συρηκόσιος,
υἱὸς Πραξαγόραο περικλειτῆς τε Φιλίννης"
μοῦσαν δ᾽ ὀθνείην οὔποτ᾽ ἐφελκυσάμην.
So also Moschus, Epitaph. Bionis, 106: ἐν δὲ Συρακοσίοισι Θεόκριτος.
6 Cf. Theocr. ITT. 8, VIII. 50; Plato, Theetet. p. 133, E;, Sympos. 216, C, Ὁ.
GG 2

452 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

Tityrus, which was the Laconian and Sicilian name for the
leading goat or ram of the flock.’ The general impression left
upon the reader of his poems is that Theocritus was a native
Dorian from Syracuse, and this is especially apparent in pas-
sages like that in the Adoniazuse, where he speaks somewhat
proudly in the person of a Syracusan woman.’ The dates of
his birth and death are unknown. It is stated in the argument
to his fourth idyl that he flourished in Ol. 124, B.c. 284—281 #
his fourteenth, fifteenth, and seventeenth idyls were manifestly
written at Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus,
and he is referred to the same period by his relations with
Philetas and Aratus ; while the sixteenth idyl, which is an en-
comium on Hiero the son of Hierocles, was probably written
about the time when that personage was raised to the throne,
i.e, in B.c. 270.4. As in this poem he speaks of being in
search of a patron,’ it may be inferred that he returned from
Alexandria shortly before this time, and spent the remainder of
his life in his native island.

Our imperfect and uncertain information respecting the
biography of Theocritus is supplemented by considerable doubts
as to the authorship of the thirty poems which bear his name.
An epigram attributed to Theocritus would lead us to con-
clude that he had himself made a collection of his writings.’
Another, which bears the name of Artemidorus, a pupil of
Aristophanes of Byzantium, speaks of a general collection of
the bucolic poets.’ To prove that the thirty poems ascribed to
Theocritus were not all written by him, appeal is made to great
differences of style and character, and these are most. conspicuous
in the compositions which stand at the end. Then it is known

1 Miiller, Dor. TV. 6, ὃ το, note e, That the name Simichidas was a general
designation of a shepherd is shown by the line in the Syrinw 13: πᾶμα Πάρις θέτο
Σιμιχίδας.
᾿Ξ XV. ρο-9ο5. Wedo not of course overlook the comic force of the passage.

3 Θεόκριτος δὲ, ὥσπερ ἐδείξαμεν κατὰ τὴν κδ' (read ρκδ΄) ᾿Ολυμπιάδα ἤκμαζεν.

4 Wiistemann, Theocritus, p. 244. 5 XVI. 5; 13 al.

8 Above, p. 451 [291], note 5.

7 Anthol. Pal. IX. 208: ᾿Αρτεμιδώρου τοῦ γραμματικοῦ ἐπὶ τῇ ἀθροίσει τῶν
βουκολικῶν ποιημάτων :—

βουκολικαὶ Μοῖσαι σποράδες ποκα, νῦν δ᾽ ἅμα πᾶσαι
ἐντὶ μιᾶς μάνδρας, ἐντὶ μιᾶς ἀγέλας.

THEOCRITUS. 453 ©

that many Alexandrian grammarians wrote commentaries on
Theocritus,’ which form the basis of our extant scholia. But these
scholia do not extend beyond the eighteenth idyl. From these
and similar considerations we should infer that a number of mis-
cellaneous poems have been bound up at the end of a collection
containing some of the genuine works of ‘Theocritus. On the
other hand, it is clear that he wrote many poems which do not
appear atall in our collection. Athenzeus has preserved a frag-
ment of his Berenice,’ and Suidas says that he wrote Προιτίδες,
᾿Ελπίδες, Ὕμνοι, Ἡρωΐναι,᾿Ἐπικήδεια μέλη, ᾿Ελεγεῖα, Ἴαμβοι,
of which only the Ὕμνοι can be identified with the poems
which we still have. From all this it would appear that the
Theocritean poems correspond in a smaller degree to .the
Hippocratic collection, and contain portions of the various
writings which were accepted at Alexandria as belonging to the
same class with the works of Theocritus.

The collection, however, is as miscellaneous in its subjects
and character as it is in authorship. Only the first eleven
poems, and the twenty-seventh, are in any Sense bucolic poems
of the Sicilian stamp, and of these the second, called Dappa-
κευτρία, or ‘the Sorceress, is not so much ἃ pastoral
poem as a scene from common life, borrowed, we are told,
from one of Sophron’s mimes.’ The fourteenth, fifteenth, and
twenty-first are three dramatic scenes of the same kind; the
second being laid in the city of Alexandria, and the last being
a dialogue between two fishermen. The twelfth, nineteenth,
twentieth, twenty-third, and twenty-ninth, are erotic poems,
of which the twentieth approaches nearest to the bucolic
strain. The thirteenth and the eighteenth are derived from
epic subjects. The sixteenth and seventeenth, though in
hexameter verse, belong to the same class as the encomia of

1 For example, Theon, Amarantus, Asclepiades of Myrlea, Munatus, Neo-
ptolemus, Nicanor of Cos, and Amerias.

2 Atheneus, VII. p. 283 A. This Berenice was the mother of Philadelphus,
not the wife of Euergetes, whose hair is honoured by Callimachus.

3 Hypoth. Gr.: τὴν δὲ Θεστύλιδα ὁ Θεόκριτος ἀπειροκάλως ἐκ τῶν Sibpovos
μετήνεγκε Μίμων.

4 The Scholiast tells us that the eighteenth idyl, or the hymenzal song of
Menelaus and Helen, was an imitation in many places of a poem by Stesichorus
on the same subject.

454 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

the old lyric poetry. The twenty-second, twenty-fourth, twenty-
fifth, and twenty-sixth, are fragments of epic poems of the
Alexandrian school. The twenty-eighth is an occasional poem
on an ivory distaff which the poet was about to take with him
as a present to Theagenis, the wife of his friend Nicias, a phy-
sician of Miletus, to whom the eleventh and thirteenth idyls are
inscribed. The thirtieth is an anacreontic poem on Adonis.
This classification will show how much diversity there is im the
Theocritean collection. We proceed to examine the separate
poems in detail, with a view to a proper estimate of their
authenticity.

The first criterion is the dialect, the second the subject. If
we rightly imterpret the profession of Theocritus himself, he
wrote only in the Doric dialect, and only on subjects which
admitted a legitimate application of the Doric hexameter.'

Both of these considerations will exclude the twelfth idyl, called
᾿Αἵτης, or ‘ the beloved youth,’ which has nothing in common
with the bucolic style, and is written in the Ionic dialect. It
is more likely to have been composed by Theocritus, the sophist
of Chios, than by his namesake of Syracuse. The second
criterion, or that of subject, affects most strongly the assumed
authenticity of the epic or quasi-epic fragments (twenty-second,
twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth), two of which (the
twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth) have been attributed by some
writers to Peisander’ or Panyasis.* Ina lesser degree this objec-
tion applies to the half epic fragments (the thirteenth and
eighteenth). The peculiar relations of the poet might explain
the deviations from the usual topics and mode of writing in
such poems as the addresses to Hiero and Ptolemy (the six-
teenth and seventeenth), and the envoy of the distaff (twenty-
eighth). The subject will overbalance the mode of treatment in
the twentieth idyl, called Βουκολισκὸς or ‘the young herds- —
man ; but the other erotic poems, the nineteenth, twenty-third,
and twenty-ninth, are not at all in the style of Theocritus. The

In Epigr. 22,1. 4:
μοῦσαν δ᾽ ὀθνείην οὔποτ᾽ ἐφελκυσάμην,

where ὀθνεῖος must mean strange or foreign in reference to Theocritus, as ἃ Dorian
of Sicily, and a bucolic poet κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν.
* This was Reiske’s opinion. 3 See Ἐς, Schlegel, Vorles. vol. I. p. 201.

THEOCRITUS. 455

Sophronic mimes, the second, fourteenth, fifteenth, and twenty-
first, must be retained on account of their style and mode of
treatment, although, as we have said, they are not strictly
bucolic. It has been conjectured’ that the first part of the
eighth idyl is an unskilful addition by some later hand, and
that this and the ninth idyl, which have the same interlocutors,
should be melted down into one poem.

Supposing then, according to this discrimination, that we
recognize as genuine works of Theocritus all those poems which
are written in the new Sicilian Doric, and which are either
bucolic, mimic, or demonstrably related to the special circum-
stances of the poet’s life, we shall be able out of these
materials to form an adequate estimate of his _ peculiar
talents: and we shall say that Theocritus has had few equals
in his power of appreciating and describing scenery, and in
the happy faculty of portraying characters by a few distinc-
tive touches. The former quality of his poems is of course
most seen in those which are strictly bucolic; the latter is
most conspicuous. in those which belong to the same class as
the Sophronic mimes. Picturesque descriptions are found in
all the idyls of the first class. For example, nothing can be
prettier than the opening lines of the whole collection, where
even the cadence of the metre imitates the sweet whispering of
the pine tree which murmurs beside the fountain.? Again, we
have a rustic prettiness in the serenade of the third idyl, where
the amorous shepherd wishes he was a humming bee, and
could come into the grot of his Amaryllis, penetrating through
the ivy and fern which mantled around 10. Similarly in the
fifth, we have a charming picture of the oaks and the cyperus, ~
the swarms of bees in one continued humming, the two cool
fountains, the birds chirping on the boughs, the unrivalled

1 By Reinhold (De genwinis Theocriti carminibus et suppositiciis, Jens, 1819).
5. J. init. :

ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ & πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα,

ἃ ποτὶ ταῖς παγαῖσι μελίσδεται,
eat, 14:

αἴθε γενοίμαν
ἁ βομβεῦσα μέλισσα καὶ ἐς τεὸν ἄντρον ἱκοίμαν,
τὸν κισσὸν διαδὺς καὶ τὰν πτέριν ἃ τὺ πυκάσδῃ.

456 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

shade, and the fir-cones falling from on high.’ But the most
complete of all these landscapes is furnished by the seventh
idyl, of which the scene is laid in Cos. The poet, who here
calls himself Simichidas, is going with two friends, Eucritus
and Amyntas, to keep the feast of Ceres by the river Halens
with Phrasidamus and Antigenes, the sons of Lycopes.”7 When
about half-way, they are overtaken by a Cretan shepherd,
Lycidas, whose attire is minutely described.* ‘ Whither,’ he
says, ‘are you dragging your feet at midday, when the lizard is
sleeping on the dyke, nor are the crested larks on the wing?
Are you invited to some feast or vintage? As you march
along every stone rings against your thick-soled boots”* The
poet greets his friend with compliments, and invites him to
join in bucolic strains. Whereupon Lycidas bursts forth imto
a pastoral song in praise of his favourite Ageanax, who has
sailed for Mitylene.’ Simichidas in return describes the love
of Aratus for young Philinus.® Here Lycidas leaves the
party, having first presented Simichidas with his shepherd’s
crook, as an acknowledgment of his poetic skill.? The three
friends arrive at the country place of Phrasidamus, and take
their seats on prepared heaps of sweet lentisk, with black
poplars and elms nodding over their heads, and the sacred water
running close by them in a bubbling brook from a grotto of
the nymphs ; the sun-burnt cicadas are chirping on the branches,
farther off the woodlark murmurs in the acacia, larks and
linnets are singing, the turtle dove is cooing, the bees are

1 V. 45 sqq.:
τουτεὶ δρύες, ὧδε κύπειρος,
ὧδε καλὸν βομβεῦντι ποτὶ σμανεσσι médica,
ἔνθ᾽ ὕδατος ψυχρῶ κρᾶναι δύο" ταὶ δ᾽ ἐπὶ δένδρων
ὄρνιχες λαλαγεῦντι" καὶ ἁ σκιὰ οὐδὲν ὁμοία
τᾷ παρὰ τίν" βάλλει δὲ καὶ ἁ πίτυς ὕψοθε κώνους.
3 VII. 1—4. 3 V. 10 sqq.
Ibid, vv. 21 sqq.:
Σιμιχίδα πᾷ δὴ τὺ μεσαμέριον πόδα ἕλκεις,
ἁνίκα δὴ καὶ σαῦρος ἐφ᾽ αἱμασίαισι καθεύδει,
οὐδ᾽ ἐπιτυμβίδιοι κορυδαλλίδες ἠλαίνοντι ;
ἢ μετὰ δαῖτα κλητὸς ἐπείγεαι; ἤ τινος ἀστῶν
λιχνὸν ἐπιθρώσκεις ; ὡς τεῦ ποσὶ νεισσομένοιο
πᾶσα λίθος πταίοισα ποτ᾽ ἀρβυλίδεσσιν ἀείδει.

5 Ibid. Vv. 52 sqq. 6 Ibid. 96 sqq. 7 Ibid. vv. 128 sqq.

THEOCRITUS. 457

fluttering about the streamlets—everywhere there is the smell
of fruitful autumn ;' pears, aud apples, and plums are strewed
around them in the greatest profusion, and the cask of four-
year-old wine is broached for the occasion. It is one of those
cheerful scenes which we find in Walton’s Angler, only that we
have the more gorgeous colours of a landscape in the
/Egean.

The mimetic or dramatic power of Theocritus is most con-
spicuous in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and twenty-first idyls.
In the first of these, Aischines, a country farmer, accounts
for his neglected person and dress by detailing to his friend
Thyonichus how his jealous temper had led him to strike his
mistress Cynisca at a drinking-bout, in consequence of which
she had forsaken him; and he is recommended to take service
under Ptolemy, whose character is drawn in very flattering
colours,* and the farmer become soldier is painted most accu-
rately with a few strokes of the pen. The well-buckled cloak,
the lengthened stride, and the firmness of the disciplined
phalangite are all brought before our eyes in a line or two.’
The fifteenth idyl takes advantage of a sumptuous feast, in-
stituted by Arsinoe in honour of Adonis, to praise Ptolemy and
his whole family. The machinery is very ingeniously con-
trived. Two Syracusan women of the lower order, Praxinoe
and Gorgo, who have migrated to Alexandria with their
husbands, are introduced just as they are starting in their
smartest dresses to see the spectacle. The whole of the intro-
duction is a little comedy. The crowd is described with all the
exaggerations of female terror.’ The amiable women abuse their
husbands,° deceive their children,’ and scold the maid-servant.°

a V6 43):

πάντ᾽ ὦσδεν θέρεος μάλα πίονος, ὦσδε δ᾽ drwpns.
2 Ibid. v. 147:
τετράενες δὲ πίθων ἀπελύετο κρατὸς ἄλειφαρ.

3 XIV. 58—62. :
4 Ibid. 63—65 :
el τοι κατὰ δεξιὸν ὦμον ἀρέσκει

λῶπος ἄκρον περονᾶσθαι, ἐπ᾽ ἀμφοτέροις δὲ βεβακὼς
τολμασεῖς ἐπιόντα μένειν θρασὺν ἀσπιδιώταν,
ἃ τάχος εἰς Αὔγυπτον.
5 XV. 4-7. 8 vv. 9-20. 7 vv. 14, 40. 8 vv. 27, 31.

458 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

Praxinoe’s gown is admired and priced.’ They are frightened
out of their wits by the king’s led horses.2 An old woman
gives them oracular encouragement as they are forcing their
way into the palace.’ They are separated from their waiting-
maids and get their dresses torn. One person in the crowd
protects them and is praised ;* another rebukes their incessant
gabbling,® and is proudly told that they are Syracusans, origi-
nally from Corinth, ‘ the country of Bellerophon, if you please,
sir,’ and that they exercise their undoubted privilege of talking
the pure Doric of the Peloponnese.’ The piece terminates
with a song in honour of Adonis by the prima Donna of Alex-
andria, and Gorgo returns home to face an angry husband,
who has not yet had his breakfast, and is not very approachable
under such circumstances. The twenty-first idyl, addressed to
Diophantus, begins with a minute description of a poor fisher-
man’s establishment on the seashore, and then introduces us
to Asphalion the angler,’ who beguiles a sleepless night by
relating to his partner how he had dreamt one afternoon that
he had caught a golden fish, and had sworn never to go fishing
again. He is prudently reminded that his oath is as unsub-
stantial as his dream, which will find its best accomplish-
ment if he plies his rod and line without dozing. ‘ Seek,’
says his friend, ‘ the fish of flesh, lest you die of hunger,
with all your golden dreams.’ It seems that this idyl is com-
posed in direct imitation of Sophron, who wrote two mimes
about fishermen, the ᾿Αλιεὺς and the Θυννοθήρας. This

1 vv. 34 sqq. 2 vv. 51-56. 3 vv. 60-63.
4 vv. 69-76. 5 vv. 74, 75- 6 vy. 87, 88,
7 Vv. 90-93:

Συρακοσίαις ἐπιτάσσεις ;
ὡς εἰδῇς καὶ τοῦτο, Κοορίνθιαί εἰμες ἄνωθεν,
ὡς καὶ ὁ Βελλεροφῶν. Πελοποννασιστὶ λαλεῦμες"
Δωρίσδειν δ᾽ ἔξεστι δοκῶ τοῖς Δωριέεσσι.

8 vv. 147, 148.

9 The man is represented as fishing with a rod (KXI. 43, 47), and his name
᾿Ασφαλίων points to the word ἀσπαλιευτής, about which we hear so much in the
Sophistes of Plato (pp. 218 E, sqq.).

10 vy. 65-67:

εἰ δ᾽ ὕπαρ ob κνώσσων τὺ τὰ χώρια ταῦτα ματεύσεις
ἐλπὶς τῶν ὕπνων" ζάτει τὸν σάρκινον ἰχθύν,
μὴ σὺ θάνῃς λιμῷ καίτοι χρυσοῖσιν ὀνείροις.

THEOCRITUS. | 459

poem is unusually corrupt in the copies which have come
down to us.

Besides these longer compositions, twenty-two epigrams bear
the name of Theocritus, and he is made the author of a fantastic
little poem called the Syrinxz, in which twenty verses are so
arranged that complete and catalectic lines succeed one another
_ in couplets, passing from the hexameter down to the dimeter
dactylic metre, so as to represent the successive lengths of the
reeds in a Pandean pipe. This jew d’esprit is attributed with
more justice to Simmias of Rhodes, who composed similar
copies of verses in the shape of an egg, an altar, and a double-
edged axe or pair of wings. It is not improbable that Theo-
critus wrote most of the epigrams. But, on the one hand, the
tenth epigram of Erycius is attributed by a manuscript to
Theocritus; and, on the other hand, the seventeenth and
tenth epigrams of Theocritus are assigned to Leonidas of
Tarentum by the modern editor of the Anthology.

There can be no doubt that Theocritus had an original
genius for poetry of the highest kind. The absence of the
usual affectation of the Alexandrian school, the constant appeal
to nature, the perception of character, the power of description,
the keen sense both of the beautiful and of the ludicrous, con-
tribute to indicate the highest order of literary talent, and
account for the universal and undiminished popularity of an
author whose era was not that of original men. His conspicuous
superiority to Virgil, who directly imitates him, shows that the
greatest skill as a writer of verses would not have enabled him
to produce these effects, if he had been merely a second-hand
writer of idyls. At the same time, it is quite clear that he had
many models to guide him or suggest his subjects to him.
Philetas, Aratus, and Asclepiades, were his immediate teachers.
Sophron and the older writers of his own country were con-
stantly before him ; and there are evidences of a careful study
of the great Attic poets, especially Sophocles.’ But with all

1 For example, the following coincidences in one chorus of the Antigone can
hardly be fortuitous:
Soph. Antig. 585:
κυλίνδει
βυσσόθεν κελαινὰν
θῖνα καὶ δυσάνεμον.

460 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—PORTS.

this, his position may have been as independent as that of our own
Shakspere, who had the stories of his plays ready to his hand
in Italian novels, English annals, and translations of Plutarch,
but made everything new as it passed through the alembic of
an imagination, with which, it must be owned, Theocritus had
much in common.

The two other bucolic poets of the Alexandrian school were
Bion of Phlossa near Smyrna, and his pupil Moscuus of
Syracuse. <A sort of elegy by the latter poet, which is extant
as his third idyl (Eztragioc Biwvoc), is our chief authority for
all that we know about Bion’s personal history. It appears
that he migrated from Asia Minor to Sicily, the home of
bucolic poetry, where he was poisoned, and where just punish-
ment overtook his murderers.' The appeal to the Bistonian
nymphs to bewail the Dorian Orpheus’ does not at all prove
that Bion had visited Macedonia. The passage, from which it
was concluded that he was a contemporary of Philetas, Ascle-
piades, Lycidas, and Theocritus, is justly considered as an
interpolation borrowed from the seventh idyl of the last-named
of these poets.’ As, however, Bion was the friend and, as it
seems, the teacher of Moschus, who was an acquaintance of
Aristarchus,‘ and therefore flourished about the middle of the
second century B.c., and as he died prematurely, he must have
lived in the generation immediately succeeding Theocritus, and
was therefore a contemporary of Apollonius and Eratosthenes.
The poems of Bion, which used to be mixed up with those of
Theocritus, consist of a lament of Adonis, with a continual

Theocr. VII. 58:
edpov bs ἔσχατα φυκία κινεῖ,
Soph. Antig. 600:
οὔτ᾽ ἀκάματοι θεῶν (1, θέοντες] μῆνες.
Theocr. XVI. 71:
οὔπω μῆνας ἄγων ἔκαμ᾽ οὐρανὸς οὔτ᾽ ἐνιαυτούς.

1 Epitaph. Bionis, 136:

φάρμακον ἦλθε, Βίων, ποτὶ σὸν στόμα, φάρμακον, εἶδες.
Ibid. 136:

ἀλλὰ Δίκα κίχε πάντας.
2 Ibid. 16, 17,
εἴπατε πάσαις

Βιστονίαις νύμφαισιν, ἀπώλετο Δώριος ᾿Ορφεύς.
3 See Hermann, Bionis et Moschi Carmina, Lipsiz, 1849, pp. 77, 78.
4 Suidas s.v.: Μόσχος, Συρακούσιος, γραμματικός, ᾿Αριστάρχου γνώριμος.

BION, MOSCHUS. ~ 461

refrain,’ not unlike that in the first idyl of Theocritus, or the
elegy on himself by Moschus; and eighteen other fragmentary
idyls, including the Κηριοκλέπτης, which occupies also the
nineteenth place among the idyls of Theocritus, but which
Hermann has added to the poems of Bion in accordance with
the suggestion of Valckenaer.? Bion writes harmonious verses
with a good deal of pathos and tenderness ; but he is as inferior
to Theocritus as he is superior to Moschus. From the latter
we have the following poems: (1) ‘Runaway Love’ (ἔρως
δραπέτης), a little piece in twenty-nine lines, also included in
the Anthologia, and written in the style of the later Anacreontics ;
(2) ‘Europa,’ in τόρ lines; (3) ‘The Elegy on Bion’ already
mentioned; (4) ‘ Megara the wife of Hercules, in 127 lines;
to which are added three short fragments from Stobzeus, and
an epigram from the Anthology of Planudes; and Hermann
has also appended to his edition of Moschus ‘ the Conversation’
(Oagisric) between Daphnis and the Nymph, which appears
as the twenty-seventh idyl of Theocritus.* Of these remains
of Moschus, the two poems on Europa and Megara are not
bucolic, but fragments of epic poems of the Alexandrian class,
and they are written in the Ionic dialect. The style of Moschus
is very artificial, with occasionally very unusual transpositions
or inversions of the natural order ;* and in his imitations it may
be sometimes doubted whether he understood the figures which
he borrowed.* Altogether, he is rather the learned versifier

1 αἰαῖ τὰν Κυθέρειαν, ἀπώλετο καλὸς "Α δωνις ; so also in the Epitaphius Bionis:
ἄρχετε Σικελικαὶ τῷ πένθεος, ἄρχετε Μοῖσαι, and in Theocritus I. 64, &e.: ἄρχετε
βωκολικᾶς, Μῶσαι φίλαι, ἄρχετ᾽ ἀοιδᾶς.

3 Hermann, p. 63. ’

3 Jacobs says: ‘sunt qui Moschum auctorem existiment. Que opinio ut minime
absurda est, ita certis firmisque argumentis destituitur.’ There is a pretty general
agreement among critics that, whether Moschus was the author or not, this poem
cannot be justly ascribed to Theocritus.

* For example, IV. το, 20:

οὐ δέ σφιν δυνάμην ἀδινὸν καλέουσιν ἀρῆξαι
μητέρ ἕήν,
for καλέουσιν μητέρ᾽ ἑήν: and similarly in vv. 83, 93.
> In IV. 58:
τὰ δέ of θαλερώτερα δάκρυα μήλων
κόλπον ἐς ἱμεροέντα κατὰ βλεφάρων ἐχέοντο---
Moschus seems to have imitated the strong metaphor in Theocritus XIV. 38:
τήνῳ τὰ σὰ δάκρυα μᾶλα ῥέοντι, without exactly understanding it.

462 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

than the true poet, and more exactly represents his friend
Aristarchus than his predecessor Theocritus.

§ 8. We must not conclude this account of the Alexandrian
poetry. without a few remarks on an inferior species of it,
belonging, like the bucolic poems which we have just discussed,
to the old carnival sports and rude burlesques of the Dorian
rustics.. These efforts of the merry-andrew class were called
sometimes ἱλαροτραγῳδίαι or ‘tragi-comedies,’ sometimes
παρῳδίαι or ‘ travesties, and sometimes φλύακες τραγικοὶ OF
‘tragic fooleries,’ whence the class of writers is termed the
Phlyacographers (φλυακογράφοι). The founder of this style of
writing was Ruintruon of Tarentum, called also a Syracusan,
who flourished in the reign of the first Ptolemy, and who gave
the earliest literary expression to the old farces of the Dorians.
The merit is claimed for him in an epigram of Nossis in rather
humble terms,’ and he does not appear to have set much value
on his own performances.’ It is pretty clear, from the subjects
of the plays attributed to him, that he particularly delighted
in travesties of Euripides. He was succeeded in his own par-
ticular style by Soparer, Scrras, and a Campanian named
Buizasus, and was well known to the Romans, insomuch that
Lucilius made him a model for imitation.* Parodies on Homer
had been made at an earlier date, and we have a long fragment
from a poem of this kind by Marron of Pitana,’ who was at
the latest a contemporary of Alexander the Great. As Rhin-

1 Miller, Dor. TV. 7, ὃ 7.
2 Anthol. Pal. VII. 414:
καὶ καπυρὸν γελάσας παραμείβεο καὶ φίλον εἰπὼν
ῥῆμ᾽ ἐπ’ ἐμοί. “Ρίνθων δ᾽ εἶμ᾽ ὁ Συρακόσιος,
Μουσάων ὀλίγη τις ἀηδονίς᾽ ἀλλὰ φλυάκων :
ἐκ τραγικῶν ἴδιον κισσὸν ἐδρεψάμεθα.

3 He seems to have expressed his disregard of metre even in the middle of his
poems. Thus Hephestion says (p. 9, Gaisford): Ῥίνθων μὲν yap καὶ ἐν ἰάμβῳ
ἐπισημασίας ἠξίωσε τὸ τοιοῦτον, ἐν yap ’Opéoryn δράματι φησίν"

ὡς σὲ Διόνυσος αὐτὸς ἐξώλη θείη

τὸ μέτρον Ἵππώνακτος" οὐδέν μοι μέλει,
where he seems to have been writing iambic trimeters, and to have allowed a choli-
ambic to slip in inadvertently. The common reading is εἴθ᾽ ‘Imm. τὸ μ., where εἴθ᾽
is probably a gloss on the ws in the line above.

4 Lydus I. 41.

5 Athen. IV. pp. 134-137: He is called Matreas in Athen. I. p. 5 A.

SILLI AND CINADI. 463

thon and Matron burlesqued the tragedians and Homer, so
Timon of Phlius, a contemporary of Philadelphus, in his three
books of SiAXor or ‘ mockeries,’’ satirized and ridiculed all the
schools of philosophy, except that of the Sceptics to which he
belonged. This work was in hexameter verse, and the second
and third books were in the form of a dialogue between himself
and Xenophon of Colophon.* From the specimens it seems to
have been a poem of considerable merit, and was made the
subject of special commentaries by Apollonides of Nicza,
Antigonus Carystius, and Sotion of Alexandria.

With these Σίλλοι of Timon, Diogenes of Laérte imme-
diately connects Κίναιδοι or ‘obscene poems,’ as having been
written by this satirist of the philosophers,’ and the same
* degraded class of writings is connected with the Φλύακες, in an
article by Suidas* respecting Sorapes and ALEXANDER the AXto-
lian, who were the authors of this lascivious versification. The
other writers mentioned by Suidas are Pyrruus the Milesian,
Tueoporvs, or THEoporipAs, TrmocHaripas, and XENARCHUS.
Alexander the Aitolian, as we have already seen, was a respec-
table grammarian and poet of the Museum at Alexandria, and
not only undertook the editorship of the tragic writers, but
obtained a place in the Pleiad by his own tragedies; and it
must be hoped, that his contributions to the class of writings

1 There is a difficulty about the etymology of this word. Some compare it with
oss, and it must be remarked that σιμῳδὸς, from the name of the Magnesian poet
Simus, was a synonym for ἱλαρῳδός, Athen. p. 620, Ὁ. lian (V. H. III. το)
connects it with Σειληνός, and adds: τὸν δὲ σιλλὸν ψόγον λέγουσι μετὰ παιδιᾶς δυσ-
ἀρέστου. Others derive it from ἰλλός (see Schoell, Hist. dela Litt. Gr. III. p. 179).
Something may be said for each of these derivations. With regard to the last opinion,
as Apollonius of Rhodes was the son of Sil/ews or Ileus, we may easily account for
the moveable s ; and as ἰλλίζω (-- διανεύω, Suidas) and ἐπιλλίζω occur, especially
in writers like Apollonius, in the sense of καταμωκᾶσθαι (cf. Argonaut. I. 486, and
especially IIT. 791, where ἐπιλλίζουσιν is followed by μωμήσονται), it does not seem
at all unlikely that σίλλος and its verb σιλλαίνω (= διασύρειν or μωκᾶσθαι, Hesych.)
really involve the same root. This at least is quite in accordance with the descrip-
tion given of Timon’s book, Diog. Laért. IX. 111: ἐν οἷς (cidXos), ws ἂν σκε-
πτικὸς ὦν, πάντας λοιδορεῖ καὶ σιλλαίνει τοὺς δογματικοὺς ἐν παρῳδίας εἴδει.

5 Diog. Laért. IX. 111. The first book was αὐτοδιήγητος, or μονοπρόσωπος,
and began: ἔσπετε viv μοι ὅσοι πολυπράγμονες ἐστὲ σοφισταί.

3 Tbid. ττο: καὶ γὰρ ποιήματα συνέγραψε καὶ ἔπη, καὶ τραγῳδίας καὶ σατύρους
καὶ δράματα κωμικὰ τριάκοντα, τραγικὰ δὲ ἑξήκοντα, σίλλους τε καὶ κιναίδους.

4 s.v. Σωτάδης ; cf. Athen. XIV. p. 620, from whom Suidas gets this infor-
mation, and Strabo, XIV. p. 648.

464 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA—POETS.

under consideration approximated rather to the Φλύακες of
Rhinthon than to the Κίναιδοι of Sotades. This latter, who
was a Cretan from Maronea, carried the extravagances of his
indecency so far that Suidas called him ‘ possessed of an evil
spirit’? (δαιμονισθείς); and he has the main discredit of the
cineedological poetry, which is called after him the Σωτάδεια
ἄσματα. The subjects of his poems are chiefly mythical,’ and
they were probably travesties like those of Rhinthon, only com-
bined with unrestrained obscenity, and applied to purposes of
personal satire and defamation. He had the audacity to attack
both Lysimachus and Ptolemy Philadelphus; and having pro-
voked the anger of the latter by a gross allusion to his marriage -
with his sister Arsinoe, he was obliged to abscond from Alexan-
dria, after having sustained a grievous imprisonment there, and
being overtaken at Caunus by Patroclus, one of Ptolemy’s
generals, was inclosed in a leaden case and flung into the sea.’
He wrote both in the Ionic dialect and in the so-called Ionic
amajore metre, which bore the same relation to the choriambic
that the Ionic a minore did to the anapestic.? The general
tone, in spite of the indecency, was borrowed from the common-
places of morality, and Sotades had many imitators, including
the Roman poets Ennius and Accius; but his name became a
by-word of reproach, and in the same way as the intolerant
churchmen of the middle ages combined an imputation of un-
natural lust with the charge of heresy so frequently alleged,
the opponents of Arius thought themselves bound to accuse

1 The titles given are "Ἄδωνις, ᾿Αμάζων, els “Avdov κατάβασις, els Βελεστίχην,
*INas, Πρίηπος.

2 Athen. XIV. pp. 620 F—621 B,

3 The Jonic a majore was really a dactyl with an anacrusis, and the rhythm of
the tetrameter brachycatalectic line used by Sotades was generally choriambic : for

might be divided as:

ee ee i .... [ἢ] ... ee (ee ὦ’
~— —

---- —_—-— ~— a ὠς —

which is quite in the choriambic cadence. The following are specimens (Stob.
Flor. XCVI1,) :

αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐὼν mavroyévns ὁ πάντα γεννῶν

οὐ κρινεῖ δικαίως τὰ κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον ἕκαστον.

SOTADES. 465

him of imitating the style of the Sotadean poems.’ The life
of Sotades was written, and his works commented on, by his
son Apollonius, and by Carystius of Pergamus.

1 Select Treatises of Athanasius, translated by J. H. Newman, Oxford, 1842:
Ῥ. 94: ‘he drew up his heresy on paper, and imitating, as if in festivity (ws ἐν θαλίᾳ),
no graye writer, but the Egyptian Sotades, in the dissolute tone of his metre, &c.’ ;
and p. 179: ‘and for Moses and the other saints, they have made the discovery of
one Sotades, a man whom even Gentiles laugh at.’ See Newman’s note on the
former passage.

Vou. II. H H

466

CHAPTER XLVI.

PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

§ 1. Classification of the prose writers of Alexandria: Demetrius the Phalerian.
§ 2. (a) Grammarians and critics: Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of By-
zantium, and Aristarchus of Samothrace. § 3. The recension of Homer. ὃ 4.
(b) Historians and chronologists. § 5. Translations of Egyptian, Chaldean, and
Hebrew annals. § 6. (c) Pure and applied mathematics: Euclid, Archimedes,
Apollonius of Perga, Eratosthenes, and Hipparchus.

§ 1, ὁ ets multifarious studies and avocations of the book-

learned men of Alexandria render it almost as difficult
to classify the prose writers as it has been to arrange the poets,
whose productions have characterized this epoch of Greek
literature. Very many of the most eminent poets were also
prose writers, and not only so, but they exhibited their yersa-
tility by writing on almost every subject of literary interest.
Callimachus, as we have seen, composed numerous books on
criticism and history, which are now lost, and Eratosthenes,
who must be, in some sense, the hero of our present chapter,
not only composed original and important works on geography,
chronology, literary criticism, mathematics, and philosophy,’
but was also the author of a poem called Hermes, which was
probably an exposition of astronomy, like that of Aratus,? and
a mythological poem called Erigone, which Longinus pro-
nounces faultless.* This being the case, it is obvious that a
mere arrangement of the principal prose writers, whether they

1 The following enumeration of the works of Eratosthenes has been drawn up by
Bernhardy (Zratosthenes, Ὁ. XVI.): ‘(1) Geographica; (2) Mercurius, Poema ;
(3) Libri de Mathematicd disciplind ; (4) Cubi duplicatio; (5) Opera philosophica ;
(6) De antiqud comedid ; (7) De chronographiis.’ He omits the Hrigone, the
epistles, the Arsinoe, and the treatise ‘on good and bad things.’

2 The commentary on Aratus, which is attributed to him, is a later work ; see
Bernhardy, Hratosthenes, pp. 117, 185.

3 De Subl. XXXIII. 5: ᾿Ερατοσθένης ἐν τῇ ᾿Ηριγόνῃ (διὰ πάντων γὰρ ἀμώμητον
τὸ ποιημάτιον).

DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS. 467

were also poets or not, according to their chronological succes-
sion, would not correspond to a methodical classification of the
subjects on which they wrote. It seems best, therefore, that
we should endeavour to ascertain the departments which were
chiefly studied by the scholars of the Museum, and the order
or succession in which these studies were developed, and that
we should then treat of the authors individually according to
the branch of study in which they obtained the greatest repu-
tation. An able writer on this subject’ has divided the per-
formances of the Alexandrian writers according to three epochs.
In the first and earliest of these periods, he finds a prepon-
derating number of poets, and an active criticism of the ancient
writers. In the second, which he regards as the ripe manhood
of the Alexandrian school, he recognizes a development of the
severer sciences, not unconnected with their application to prac-
tical matters. And in the third, which he considers the period
of decline, he places the speculations of the Eclectics and Neo-
Platonists. This subdivision is generally true. Accordingly,
reserving for a future chapter*® the consideration of the last of
these three epochs, we must inquire what is the proper and
methodical arrangement of the authors who have rendered the
two former periods illustrious; and having already discussed
the poets who preponderate in the first of them, we shall find
that the progress of development was from grammar and criti-
cism, the firstfruits of book learning, to the more elaborate and
learned treatment of history and chronology, and from the
ancillary questions of space and time, of distances and dates,
involved in such an examination of ancient annals, to observa-
tions and speculations in pure and mixed mathematics, perhaps
not altogether unconnected with researches in. the ancient lite-
rature and learning of Egypt. The eminent Athenian, to
whose arrival at Athens the literary tendencies of the active
and warlike Ptolemy Soter are generally attributed, was likely,
from the nature of his previous avocations, to give precisely this
direction to the studies of the Egyptian Greeks. Drmernrius
the Pua.ertan, the disciple of Theophrastus and the friend and

1 Parthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum, pp. 216 sqq.
2 See below, chapter 1.111,
}: 85: ae

468 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

fellow-pupil of Menander, had governed Athens as the head of
the Macedonian party, from Ol. 115, 4. B.c. 317, to Ol. 118, 2.
B.C. 307, when his power was overthrown, and he took refuge at
the court of Ptolemy Soter, over whom he acquired great influ-
ence, insomuch that he engaged the king in that formal patro-
nage of literature with which we are now concerned, and was even
indulged with the favourite occupation of a philosopher, the forma-
tion or revision of a code of laws.’ Having given advice unfavour-
able to the pretensions of Philadelphus, he was banished to Upper
Egypt when that monarch came to the throne, and died in exile
(from the bite of an asp) some little time after B.c. 283.
During the long period which Demetrius thus spent at Alexan-
dria,* he was occupied in the composition of works belonging
to the class which we regard as specially characteristic of the
first period of Alexandrian prose literature. We are told that he
wrote on history and politics, on the poets, and on rhetoric,
publishing also some of his own speeches; and that besides this
he prepared collections of Aisop’s fables.* He made, therefore,
a first beginning of the grammatical and critical literature of
his adopted country. As he had distinguished himself, while
still in power at Athens, by a revival of the taste for epic
poetry, and by a restoration of the old rhapsodical recitations of
Homer,’ it is not improbable that he stimulated the labours
which bore so much fruit in the hands of Zenodotus and Aris-
tarchus. As an Athenian, who never forgot his native land,*
it may be supposed that he took a special interest in the old
history of the country which sent forth the legendary Cecrops,
and which the conquerors of Xerxes had endeavoured to make
an appendage of Attica.’ And it is not at all improbable that

1 Milian, V. H. III. 7.

2 Diog. Laért. V. 78: ὑπ’ ἀσπίδος τὴν χεῖρα δηχθείς.

3 Cic. De fin. V. το, § 54-

4 Diog. Laért. V. 80, gives a long list of his writings, dv, he says, ἐστι τὰ μὲν
ἱστορικά, τὰ δὲ πολιτικά, τὰ δὲ περὶ ποιητῶν, τὰ δὲ pyropixt, δημηγοριῶν τε καὶ
πρεσβειῶν, ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ λόγων Αἰσωπείων συναγωγαὶ καὶ ἄλλα πλείω.

5 Athen. XIV. p. 620. Eustath. ad Jl. p. 1479.

6 Plut. De Exilio, p. 601, F.: οὗτος μὲν γὰρ ἐν ᾿Αλεξανδρείᾳ, μετὰ τὴν φυγήν, πρῶτος
ὧν τοῦ Πτολεμαιοῦ φίλων, οὐ μόνον αὐτὸς ἐν ἀφθόνοις διῆγεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς ᾿Αθηναίοις
δωρεὰς ἔπεμπε.

7 Thucyd. I. 104, 109.

ZENODOTUS. 469

he may have given the first suggestion for those translations of
the hieroglyphic annals of Egypt which are connected with the
names of Manetho and Eratosthenes. A similar impulse of
curiosity may have led him to wish for a version of the myste-
rious books of the Jews, and an old and consistent tradition
carries back the commencement of the Septuagint translation
of the Old Testament to the period when the advice of Deme-
trius was still respected in the Museum, which he did so much
to found.’ The school of Alexandria followed the impulse thus
given to it. From grammar and criticism, which dealt with
words and with books, it passed to history, which treated of
events; and from Greek history, it passed, in a scholar-like
spirit unknown to the earlier Greeks, to researches in the old
Egyptian and Hebrew annals, to which the peculiar position of
Alexandria directed the attention of the learned men of the
Museum. And the peculiar genius of a few eminent mathema-
ticians found a ready transition from these subjects to the
further prosecution of those geometrical studies for which the
ancient Egyptians had always been remarkable. We can
hardly adopt a more methodical arrangement of the prose
writers of Alexandria than that which is thus suggested by the
predominant influence of such a man of letters as Demetrius
the Phalerian.

ὃ 2. The earliest grammarians and critics of the Museum
were, as we have seen, Alexander of AStolia, Lycophron of
Chalcis, and Zenodotus of Ephesus; and while we are told by
the scholiast on Plautus that the two former especially under-
took the recension of the tragic and comic poets respectively,
the great epos of Homer and the other illustrious poets
were assigned to Zenodotus. We have already mentioned
Alexander and Lycophron among the poets of Alexandria,
and we know little or nothing of their prose writings. But
Zenovotvs, who wrote little or no poetry himself, deserves a
special notice here, as the leader of the professed critics of
the Museum.

The ancient lexicographers and scholiasts mention three, or,
as some think, four critical scholars of the name of Zenodotus

1 Valckenaer, Diatribe de Aristobulo, ec. XVI. sqq. p. 47 849.

470 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

—the Ephesian,' the Alexandrine, the native of Mallus,* the
disciple of Crates.* F. A. Wolf® identifies the last three with
one another, conceiving that the disciple of Crates of Mallus
was of the same place as his teacher, but was called the Alexan-
drian from his settlement in Egypt. Be this as it may, it is
clear that the Alexandrian Zenodotus wrote in opposition to the
Homeric criticisms of Aristarchus,’ to whom Crates of Mallus
was especially opposed ; and it is not absolutely impossible that
the name of the great Zenodotus, the first editor of Homer,
may have been assumed as a nom de guerre by any man of
Alexandria or Mallus, who wished to impugn the subsequent
editorship of Aristarchus. We have seen that the Ephesian
Zenodotus was the colleague of Philetas, as the tutor of Phila-
delphus, and as the editor of Homer. Some have made him
the pupil of Philetas, and the preceptor of the children of
Philadelphus. It is not impossible that he may have taught
both the father and his sons, and it is clear that he flourished
in the reign of the second Ptolemy as well as under the son of
Lagus. Although Suidas calls Zenodotus an epic poet (éo-
ποιός), and though the Anthology contains three epigrams
- attributed to him,’ which may, however, be the work of another
and later writer of the same name, it seems pretty clear that
Zenodotus did not, like Callimachus, indulge in poetical compo-
sition, but that he devoted himself heartily and unreservedly to
the business of a grammarian and critic. Besides the Epitome
and historical memoirs’ quoted by Athenzus, which may have
been the works of the Alexandrian Zenodotus,” and the collec-

1 Suidas: Znvddoros, ᾿Εφέσιος, ἐποποιὸς καὶ γραμματικός, μαθητὴς τοῦ Φιλητᾶ,
ἐπὶ Πτολεμαίου γεγονὼς τοῦ πρώτου, ὃς καὶ πρῶτος τῶν ‘Ourpou διορθωτὴς ἐγένετο,
καὶ τῶν ἐν ᾿Αλεξανδρείᾳ βιβλιοθηκῶν προὔστη καὶ τοὺς παῖδας ἹΙτολεμαίου,
ἐπαίδευσε.

2 Id.: ηνόδοτος ᾿Αλεξανδρεύς, γραμματικός, ὁ ἐν ἄστει κληθείς.

3 Theon, ad Arat. Phenom. 33: Ζηνόδοτος 6 Μαλλώτης.

# Schol. ad. Jl. XXIII. 79: Znvddoros ὁ Κρατήτειος.

5 Prolegom. Hom. p. CXCIX.

6 Suid.: πρὸς τὰ ὑπ᾽ ᾿Αριστάρχου ἀθετούμενα τοῦ ποιητοῦ.

7 Stobeeus (Serm. 2, 61) gives a few iambic lines attributed to Zenodotus.

8 Athen, X. p. 412, A.

9 Td. III. p. 96, A: ἐν ἱστορικοῖς ὑπομνήμασι.

10 This is the opinion of Reinesius and other scholars,

ARISTOPHANES, 47}

tions of unusual words (γλῶσσαι), and foreign phrases (λέξεις
£Ovxai),? which undoubtedly belonged to the Ephesian critic,
the first librarian of the Museum published an elaborate edition
of all the chief poets, the tragic and comic writers only
excepted. Among these we hear of a recension of Pindar* and
Anacreon,‘ and a collection of the poets of the Epic Cycle.’

But his greatest work, and that on which his reputation mainly
rests, was his edition (ἔκδοσις) or revision (διόρθωσις) of the
text of Homer. His main object seems to have been the com-
parison of the different manuscripts brought together in the
library at Alexandria, and the establishment of a consistent text,
by expunging or obelizing the doubtful verses, by transposing
the lines, or by introducing verbal alterations, in accordance
with certain principles which he had laid down for himself.
The scholia mention about 400 readings due to Zenodotus, 200
introduced by Aristophanes, and 1000 corrections of Aristarchus.
It does not appear that Zenodotus wrote any commentary on
Homer, but the lexical works referred to above may have been
connected with his Homeric studies, and he is supposed to have
been the author of the calculation of the days of the Iliad,
which is found in the Ilian table, and was prefixed to his
edition of Homer.’

The path opened by Zenodotus was pursued in a more com-
prehensive spirit of philology by his pupil ArisToPHANEs,
the son of Apelles of Byzantium, who succeeded Erato-
sthenes and Apollonius in the management of the Alex-
andrian library, and flourished about s.c. 200. There was
hardly any department in the labours of Zenodotus, in which
he was not followed by Aristophanes, who was, like his
master, an editor of Homer and the other great poets,’ and,

1 Schol. Apollon. Rhod. II. 1005.

5 Galen, Gloss. Hippocr. s.vv. πέζαι, πέλλα.

3 Béckh, Pref. ad Schol. Pind. p. TX. sqq.

* Bergk, Anacreont. Carm. Relliquie, p. 25.

5 Heffter, De Zenodoto ejusque studiis Homericis, Brandenburg, 1839.

δ See Clinton, F. H. 111. pp. 491 sqq.

? Diintzer, De Zenodoti Studiis Homericis. Géttingen, 1848, pp. 194 seqq.

8 He was especially an editor of Pindar. Thomas Magister says in his life of
Pindar (p. XLV. Donalds.): 6 δὲ ἐπινίκιος οὗ ἡ ἀρχὴ, ‘”"Apiocrov μὲν ὕδωρ,᾽ προ-
τέτακται ὑπὸ ᾿Αριστοφάνους τοῦ συντάξαντος τὰ Πινδαρικά.

472 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

like him, compiled collections of unusual or foreign words
(γλῶσσαι, λέξεις), and wrote memoirs or commentaries (ὑπο-
μνήματα). But Aristophanes took a wider range in his studies.
He was a philologer in the largest sense of the term, and may
be regarded as the great Masoret of Greek literature; for he
invented the system of accentuation, which, for so many years,
preserved the original pronunciation of the language ;? he intro-
duced punctuation, and the divisions of words in the lines ;* and
by his various writings prepared the groundwork for our revival
of scholarship in modern times. He not only endeavoured, by
the aid of the manuscripts, to establish a good text of the best
writers, but also criticized them with regard to their subject-
matter, and their taste and judgment in handling it. Nor did
he, like Zenodotus, confine his attention to the poets. He
edited Plato* and Aristotle, and wrote an abridgment of the
work by the latter ‘on the nature of animals.” Many of the
arguments of the ancient dramas are due to him, and he is con-
stantly quoted in the scholia. His independent works were a
commentary on the tables of Callimachus,’ an elaborate trea-
tise, in several books, on the courtesans of Athens,’ and some
historical monographs, especially on Thebes or Beotia.’ To
Aristophanes belongs the honour of having first founded a school
of grammar; he counted among his pupils the far-famed Aris-
tarchus, Agallias of Corcyra, Diodorus, and Callistratus; and
it was from this school that the canon of Greek writers ema-
nated ; so that Aristophanes and Aristarchus nearly succeeded
in doing for Greek literature what the scribes of the Great
Congregation effected for the sacred books of the Jews.®

1 A portion of his λέξεις is still extant, and is printed in Boissonade’s edition of
Herodian’s Partitiones. :

2 See Foster’s Essay on Accent and Quantity, p. 181 sqq.

3 Id. ibid. p. 186, sqq., ‘Before his time the words were written, wno ae per-
petuo ductu, the letters of the same and of different words at exactly the same
distance, without any mark of a pause to distinguish either sentences, or members
of sentences, or words from one another.’

4 He arranged the dialogues of Plato in T'rilogies, Diog. Laért. III. 61.

5 Athen. IX. p. 408.

® Ibid, XIII. pp. 567, 583. He enumerated no less than 535 of them.

7 Suid. s.v. ὁμολώϊος Ζεύς. Plut. De Malign. Herodoti 31. 33, Steph. Byz. s.v.
᾿Αντικονδυλεῖς.

8 Cicero (De Oratore, III. 33, ὃ 132) mentions Aristophanes and Callimachus

‘

ARISTARCHUS. 473

The complete establishment of the Alexandrian school of
grammar and criticism is attributable to Aristarcuus of
Samothrace. Having succeeded his teacher Aristophanes both
in his lecture-room and at the library, he was intrusted by the
sixth Ptolemy, Philometor, with the education of his son, and
also had Ptolemy Physcon for his pupil.’ The period of his
greatest eminence was about B.c. 156. In the decline of his
life he was so dissatisfied with the treatment which he received
from Physcon (who commenced his sole and undisputed reign in
B.C 146,) that he retired to Cyprus, where he died at the age of
seventy-two, having, it is said, starved himself to death because
he was labouring under incurable dropsy.2 He left two sons,
Aristagoras and Aristarchus, who were also grammarians, but he
was succeeded in his school by Ammonius.’ He counted no less
than forty scholars, and his school flourished for a long time at
Alexandria, and afterwards at Rome. ‘There can be no doubt ©
that Aristarchus deserves the reputation which he enjoys as the
greatest critic of ancient times. He carried to the highest
point of perfection and refinement the traditions which he
derived from Zenodotus and Aristophanes, and occupied himself
mainly with the objects which they had pursued—the correc-
tion and elucidation of the texts of the ancient authors in
general, of the poets in particular, and above all of Homer.
Suidas says that he wrote no less than eight hundred memoirs

among the most eminent men in different branches of literature and science ; Pliny
(H. N. Ὗ. 5) calls the former ‘celeberrimus in arte grammatica ;’ and Mr. Foster,
who has elaborately vindicated his reputation, says (Essay on Accent and Quantity,
p- 191): ‘On the-whole, in regard to this man’s real character and merit, I cannot
help repeating what has been said above, and declaring even more, that posterity
hath been more truly and essentially benefited by the ingenuity of this learned
Greek, than by the writings of any one profane author of antiquity.’ He refers
particularly to the invention of punctuation, of which he had said (p. 187) that ‘he
should not scruple to prefer the merit of it to that of the best critical or gramma-
tical treatise that was ever written, not excepting Aristotle’s and Quinctilian’s
great rhetorical works.’

1 Athen. II. p. 71, B.

2 Suidas, s.n.: τελευτᾷ δὲ ἐν Κύπρῳ ἑαυτὸν ὑπεξαγαγὼν ἐνδείᾳ τροφῆς νόσῳ τῇ
ὕδρωπι ληφθείς.

8 Suidas informs us respecting the sons of Aristarchus: ἄμφω δὲ ἐγένοντο
εὐήθεις ὥστε καὶ ἐπράθη ὁ ᾿Αρίσταρχος. ᾿Αθηναῖοι δὲ ἐλθόντα παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἐξωνή-
σαντο.

474 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

or commentaries (ὑπομνήματα), but unfortunately all his works
are lost, and we are left to form a judgment of his wonderful
acuteness and accuracy from the fragmentary extracts scattered
through the pages of Eustathius and the scholiasts on Homer.
His great object, like that of our modern critics of the Por-
sonian school, was to reduce everything to fixed principles and
definite rules, and this led him to mark with the obelos a great
number of passages in Homer which did not square with his
Procrustean criterion of genuineness.” Against these rude
remedies of fire and steel there was much reclamation among
his contemporaries, and the younger Zenodotus, Callistratus,
and others, wrote against his principles of rejection. On more
general grounds, he was involved in more than one controversy
with Crates of Mallus, the head of the school aud library of
Pergamus. Crates wished to favour the allegorical interpre-
“tation of Homer, which was for a long time fashionable,® and
which has revived in modern times; but Aristarchus insisted
on a literal understanding of the narratives in the epic poem.
And the strict principles of uniformity in usage and construc-
tion, which were maintained by Aristarchus in his treatise ‘on
analogy’ (epi ἀναλογίας), were directly combated by Crates in
an essay ‘on irregularity’ (περὶ ἀνωμαλίας). We may infer
the love of form and order, which was so characteristic of
Aristarchus,’ from the fact that he was at the pains to arrange
the two great Homeric poems in exactly twenty-four books
each, in accordance with the number of letters in the com-
plete or later Greek alphabet, a process which must have
been quite arbitrary, and must have increased his predilection
for limitations and exclusions. The same process must have

1 λέγεται δὲ γράψαι ὑπὲρ & βιβλία ὑπομνημάτων μόνον. See the list of his
writings in Clinton, 7. H. III. p. 530, note f.

2 See Lehrs, De Aristarchi Studtis Homericis, Kénigsberg, 1833.

3 On the theories and works of Crates, see Wolf, Proleg. p. CCLXXVI.
Clinton, F. H. III. p. 528, note e.

4 A. Gellius, Noctes Atticw, II. 25: ‘duo autem Greci grammatici illustres
Aristarchus et Crates summa ope, ille ἀναλογίαν, hic ἀνωμαλίαν defensitavit.’

* This love of order and symmetry was not exhibited in his person, for Aris-
tarchus was a notorious sloven. Athen. I. p. 21, C: Καλλίστρατος δ᾽ Ἀριστοφά-
νειος ᾿Αρίσταρχον ἐν συγγράμματι κακῶς εἴρηκε ἐπὶ τῷ μὴ εὐρύθμως ἀμπέχεσθαι,
φέροντός τι καὶ τοῦ τοιούτου πρὸς παιδείας ἐξέτασιν.

ARISTARCHUS. 475

been adopted in his dealing with the canon of Greek writers in
general. It seems that this canon or rule for the exclusion of
all unworthy writers from the list of first-rate or classical
writers, was first conceived by Callimachus. It was completed
by Aristophanes of Byzantium, and the list was most rigorously
reyised by Aristarchus, who struck out of the canon at least all
writers of his own time. It is not possible to restore the list
which met with the approbation of Aristarchus. Different
authorities give us different enumerations of the canonical
writers, amounting in all to 109 names, and it is clear that
many of these must have been omitted by the fastidious head
of the Alexandrian school. The numerous grammarians of
Alexandria, who followed Aristarchus, were less particular.
Indeed, they seem to have preferred commenting on poets
who were almost their contemporaries, and there can be little
doubt that the canon ultimately contained every Greek writer
who succeeded in obtaining any reputation or popularity.’

Aristarchus was regarded by his immediate successors as the
leader of grammarians (ὁ κορυφαῖος τῶν γραμματικῶν), the
arch-grammarian of Greece (ὁ γραμματικώτατος), and Panetius
considered that his wonderful sagacity amounted to a kind of
inspired divination.? He stands far above the numerous tribe
which followed in his steps—the scholiasts, writers on points
of ‘syntax, etymology, metres, and music, the lexicographers,
and the laborious collectors of peculiarities of dialects,
whose numerous works are still extant, whereas we know
Aristarchus only by the reflex of an universal reputation.

§ 3. The chief employment of Zenodotus, Aristophanes,
and Aristarchus, and that which was common to all three of
these early scholars, was the revision and settlement of the
text of Homer. And as the form, in which these only re-
maining specimens of the epic cycle have come down to us, is
mainly that which was finally established by Aristarchus, the
subject deserves a special notice in a history of Greek lite-
rature,

1 Vide Ruhnken, Hist. Or. p. XCIV., Parthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum,
pp. 125—128. ᾿

53 Athen. XIV, p. 634 C.; ’Apicrapxos ὁ γραμματικός, ὃν μάντιν ἐκάλει ἸΤαναί-
τιος ὁ Ῥόδιος φιλόσοφος διὰ τὸ ῥᾳδίως καταμαντεύεσθαι τῆς τῶν ποιητῶν διανοίας,

476 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

The scholiast on Plautus, to whom we have more than once
referred, tells us that the first collection of the previously scat-
tered poems of Homer was made in the time of Pisistratus by
Conchylus and Onomacritus of Athens, Zopyrus of Heraclea,
and Orpheus of Croton, and that the work which they began
was finally completed by Aristarchus.' By the side of this
statement respecting Pisistratus and his edition of Homer, we
have the regulation of his contemporary Solon, that the
rhapsodes who recited the Homeric poems at the Panathenza
should do so according to the .regular succession of the
subjects,” and should be kept to the authorized text bya
prompter appointed for that purpose. These traditions taken
together show that at a very early period the same step had
been taken with regard to the Homeric poems‘in particular, as
was adopted with regard to all the epic poems of the Greeks
when they were formed into the epic cycle, which was an
arrangement of the poems according to the succession of the
events recorded in them. How far we are to agree with the
χωρίζοντες or separators, who referred the Iliad and Odyssey
to different authors, how far these poems, as they were arranged
in the time of Solon and Pisistratus, corresponded to the text
which we have received from Aristarchus, how far the
διασκευασταὶ or interpolators began their work in the days of
Orpheus and Onomacritus, how far the ‘ Wrath of Achilles’? and
the ‘ Iliad,’ properly so called,’ were melted down into one whole
before the Athenian recension, are questions which we cannot
expect to settle with the data now accessible to us. Thus much,
however, may be concluded with tolerable certainty. Aristar-
chus, with his love of uniformity, and with that pedantic ©

1 Ritschl, Alezandr. Bibl. p. 4: ‘ Pisistratus sparsam prius Homeri poesim ante
Ptolemzeum Philadelphum annis CC. et eo etiam amplius sollerti cura in ea que
nunc extant redegit volumina, usus ad hoe opus divinum industria quattuor cele-
berrimorum et eruditissimorum hominum, videlicet, Conchyli, Onomacriti, Atheni-
ensium, Zopyri Heracleotee, et Orphei Crotoniate. Nam carptim prius Homerus
et nonnisi difficillime, legebatur. Quinetiam post Pisistrati curam et Ptolemzi (é.e.
Philadelphus, who employed Zenodotus) diligentiam Aristarchus adhuc exactius
in Homeri elimandam collectionem vigilavit.’

2 Diog. Laért. XXI. 57, quoting Dieuchidas; Welcker, Ep. Cycl. p. 378.

3 See Miiller, above, chapter V. 88 5, 6. Grote, History of Greece, II. pp.
236, foll, _

THE RECENSION OF HOMER. 477

accuracy which led him to insert the accents throughout the
poems of Homer, did not allow any incongruities either of lan-
guage, style, or subject, so far as he could discover them. He
therefore reduced the two poems to one dialect, and as he ar-
ranged them in a number of books exactly corresponding to
the letters of the Greek alphabet in his own time, he must
have dealt with the subdivisions in a somewhat arbitrary
manner. Perhaps it was he who first inserted some of the
episodes in order to make up the number of books which his
fondness for symmetry suggested to him as the most appropriate.
Originally the separate rhapsodies were arranged merely in
accordance with their subjects—thus, what are now the fifth
and sixth books of the Jiiad were originally called ‘ the prowess
or paramount excellence of Diomed ;? the second book was
divided into two rhapsodies, ‘the dream,’ and ‘the catalogue ;’
and the ninth was called ‘the supplications.’ Crates of
Mallus, the opponent of Aristarchus, adopted an arbitrary divi-
sion of the Iliad and Odyssey, suggested by that of Herodotus,
according to the number of the nine muses, for he arranged
each poem in nine books.’ In taking the greater number of
books of unequal length, Aristarchus must have wished to in-
corporate all that was contained in the different editions of
Homer, as they appeared in the Alexandrian library. Of these
editions there were two classes, the public texts, as they were
received in the different cities, which had from an early period
encouraged the recitation of Homer’s poems (ai πολιτικαί, κατὰ
πόλεις, ἐκ πόλεων) and the editions revised by certain eminent
individuals (ai κατ᾽ ἄνδρα). Of the former, the best known
were the Massilian, Chian, Argive, Cyprian, Sinopic, Cretan,
and Molic, the most highly esteemed being the Massilian,
which was imported at a very early period from Phocza to the
south of Gaul, and the Chian, which claimed a transmission from
an original school of the Homeridz. Of the individual texts, the
best known was the recension by Antimachus of Colophon, who
flourished at the same time as Plato,* that which the great

1 Suidas s.v. Κράτης: συνέταξε διόρθωσιν ᾿Ιλίαδος καὶ ᾿Οδυσσείας ἐν βιβλίοις 6’.

2 Wolf, Proleg. p. CLXXYV.; Villoison, Prol. ad Schol. Venet. p. 26; Mure,
Hist. of Lit. of Gr. I. p. τρο.

3 Above, ch, XXX. § 5.

478 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

Aristotle prepared for the use of Alexander,’ the edition of the
Odyssey by Aratus, and that of both poems by Rhianus,’ a con-
temporary of Eratosthenes. All these copies must have been
accessible to Aristarchus, and there is no reason to think that
he either introduced his own conjectural emendations into the
text, or that he omitted any passage which he regarded as
ungenuine. Thus, though he agreed with Aristophanes in
considering that the Odyssey properly terminated at 1. 296 of
book XXIITI.,* he did not hesitate to publish all the twenty-four
books as they now are, and though his ἀθετήσεις or dis-
allowances of passages were of constant occurrence, he did not
expunge any of the lines to which he objected. He contro-
verted the doctrine of the χωρίζοντες or separators, who,
originating it seems with Xenon, and supported by Hellanicus
of the school of Zenodotus, wished to assign the Jliad and
Odyssey to two different poets.’ In general we may conclude
that Aristarchus claimed for Homer all that had been attri-
buted to him on any competent authority, and though his love
of regularity induced him to impose upon the language and
metres of Homer a modernized uniformity of orthography and
dialect, beneath which we have to seek for the language of the
old poems as they were recited by the rhapsodists before the
invention or common use of writing,’ and though he ar-
ranged his collection in an arbitrary and fanciful number of
books, we are indebted to his critical sagacity and literary
honesty for a textus receptus of these oldest relics of Greek
poetry, which has preserved and transmitted to us a record of
the concurrent traditions respecting the Homeric rhapsodies, so
far as they were known at Alexandria in the second century
before our era.

§ 4. It was not likely that a literary community, such.as that
which flourished under royal patronage at Alexandria, would

1 Above, ch. XL. § τ΄ 2 Wolf, Prol. p. CLXXXVI.

3 Id, p. CLXXXVII. * 5680), Buttmann. ad loc.

5 Mure, I. p. 192, II. pp. 119, foll. ’

6 For example, he writes ἕως for the old @Fos, where the metre requires a
trochee, though the existence of ds in Pindar and Aristophanes, and the analogy
of λᾶς, λέως and λαός, véws and ναός, might have induced him to leave the old
word: see New Cratylus, § 257; Varronianus, p. 288, where this was first

indicated.

HISTORIANS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 479

undertake the composition of histories like those of the classical
period. Neither the state of public affairs nor the opportu-
nities enjoyed by these scholars would have enabled them to
write original histories like that of Philochorus, to say nothing
of the greater works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Philistus.
The only writers of this class belonging to the Ptolemaic period
were some of the kings themselves. Protemy Sorer, in par-
ticular, wrote a history of the wars of Alexander the Great, in
which he*took an active and distinguished part; and Arrian,
to whom we are indebted for our best account of the battles, in
which the Macedonian conqueror overthrew the power of the Per-
sian Empire, often speaks in high terms of the information which
he derived from the memoirs of Ptolemy. He mentions them,
along with those of Arisrosu.vs, as the most trustworthy autho-
rities for the events which he recorded, and it is almost certain
that the military details in Arrian, which have quite the air of a
contemporary description,. were derived directly from the soldier-
like narratives of Ptolemy in particular. It is clear, from
some passages, that Ptolemy was as careful to abstain from
claiming a share in exploits in which he had no share, as he
was in narrating the facts which fell under his own cognizance.’

There were other historians of Alexander the Great, who
flourished in the time of the earlier Ptolemies, but were not, as
far as we can learn, connected with the Alexandrian school of
literature. Such were Anticterpes of Athens, whose books
on Alexander and other historical subjects are often cited ;
Anaxtmenes the rhetorician of Lampsacus, who wrote Philip-
pica, or the history of Philip and his son; CauuistHENzs, the
nephew of Aristotle, who published a history of Alexander and
other memoirs; Nearcuus the admiral, and his pilot Ownesi-
critus of Aigina, Hirronymus of Cardia, Cuarzs of Mytilene,
Cieitarcuus of AMolia, Duris of Samos, and Nympuis of
Heraclea, all of whom composed histories of the whole or part
of Alexander’s expeditions, and some of whom wrote about his
successors.” Their works are lost, and we can only say that

1 See for example Arrian, Anab. VI. 11, 88 7, 8.
2 See a list of these writersin Schoell’s Histoire dela Litterature Greque profane,

ITI. pp. 199, seqq. The fragments have been collected by C. Miiller, as a sup-
plement to Diibner’s edition of Arrian, Paris, 1846.

480 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

they belonged, more or less, to the same class with the writings
of Ptolemy Soter and Aristobulus of Cassandria, though they
do not seem to have possessed the same value and authenticity.

The majority of the Alexandrian writers on history were
book-learned compilers from the written materials to which
they had such ready access. They belonged to precisely the
same class as the Atthidists, whom we have discussed in a
previous chapter, and one of these, the Callimachean Isrer,
was an Alexandrian grammarian. The Alexandrian Compilers,
however, did not confine themselves to Attic history, or even,
as a general rule, make this the basis of their investigations.
On the contrary, as we have already seen, some of the most
eminent of them wrote on the antiquities of the Greek towns
in Libya, and others discussed questions relating to Beotia
and other provinces of old Greece. Their mythography, too,
was very general. The favourite form which they gave to
their researches was that of poetry, and this again furnished a
vehicle for learned commentaries in explanation of the allusions
which served the same purpose as the special investigations of
the Atthidists. Sometimes, however, they wrote systematic
treatises on mythology, and so endeavoured to bolster up the
popular belief, which had been sorely shaken by the levity of
the comic writers, and had received a very questionable support
from the rationalistic ingenuity of the Cyrenaics. One of this
school, Evemervus or EvHEMERvs, who was living at the court
of Cassander in B.c. 316,’ had published a book of ‘sacred
records’ (ἱερὰ ἀναγραφῆ), in which he endeavoured to deprive
the ancient mythology of all its supernatural elements, and to
represent the gods of Hellas as human beings who performed:
ordinary, or at least possible, exploits.? This procedure found
no favour with the learned men of Alexandria, and Eratosthenes
treated Euhemerus with great contempt. And the old poetical
machinery is revived in a treatise of the Alexandrian school,
which has come down to us, at least in part. This is the

1 Euseb. Prep. Evang. II. 2, p. 59 sqq. (I. p. 130, Gaisford; p. 67, Heinichen,)
Clinton’s Fasti Hell. III. p. 481.

2 Plut. 78. ef Ostr. c. XXIII. p. 360; Lactant. Jnst. 1. XI. 33; Cic. De Nat.
Deor. I. 11, 119; Varro, R. R. I. 48, 2; and especially see Hieron. Columna, in
his edition of Ennius, Neap. 1590, pp. 479-505 ; Creuzer, Symbolik, I. 113, sqq.,
II. 54, 258, 11, 143, IV. 667.

APOLLODORUS. 481

Bibliotheca of Avottoporus of Athens, who was, for a long
time, the pupil of Aristarchus,' and flourished in the second half
of the second century B.c.? This work, which is in three books,
and which has not been preserved without many mutilations
and corruptions, contains a general sketch of the mythic legends
of the Greeks, derived directly from the old chroniclers and
poets, especially from the lost poems of the epic cycle.* The
accuracy with which the author followed the traces of his old
books, is shown by the frequent occurrence of purely poetical
phrases in the midst of his prose,‘ and on this account the
work is of considerable value to us. The first book begins
with six sections about the theogonies and cosmogonies of the
ancients, and then passes on to the oldest Hellenic myths,
especially those of the Aolic tribes; we have the groundwork
of many an epic poem ; the stories of the Aloides, of Marpessa, of
(Eneus, Ino, and Athamas, Peleus, Neleus and Nestor, Bias
and Melampus, the hunt of the Caledonian boar, and the
voyage of the Argonauts. The second book contains the his-
tory of the families of Inachus and Perseus. From these the
author passes on to a full account of Hercules and his adven-
tures ; and the book closes with the return of the Heracleide,
and the mythic history of the Peloponnesus down to the time
of Aipytus. The third book takes up the family of Agenor,
which it discusses in seven sections, beginning with the Cretan
legends, going on to those of Thebes, with a special episode
about Bacchus, and a brief exposition of the Theban war and
the fate of Alemzon. In the next two chapters it treats of
Arcadian myths, and goes through the seven daughters of
Atlas. Taygete introduces us to Lacedeemonian, and Electra
to Trojan legends. We have then somewhat abrupt transitions

1 Suidas s.v. ᾿Απολλόδωρος" εἷς τῶν ἸΤαναιτίου τοῦ ‘Podiov φιλοσόφου καὶ ᾿Αριστάρ-
χου τοῦ γραμματικοῦ μαθητῶν, ᾿Αθηναῖος τὸ γένος. Scymm. Chius v, 22: συνε-
σχολακὼς δε πολὺν ᾿Αριστάρχῳ χρόνον.

3 He dedicated his Chronica to Attalus Philadelphus, who died in B.c. 138, and
the work came down to B.c. 143. Hence it is concluded that Apollodorus was
known as a writer between Ol]. 150-160.

8. He mentions expressly Stesichorus, Pindar, the tragedians, especially
Euripides, Pherecydes, Herodotus, Acusilaus, Amelesagoras, Philocrates, Dema-
ratus, Asclepiades, Castor, besides Homer, Hesiod, the poets of the epic cycle,
and Apollonius of Rhodes.

4 Miiller, Pragm. Hist. Gr. p. XL.

Vou. 11: II

482 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

to the Macide, and the stories of Attica; and the book breaks
off in the history of Theseus, although we know that Apollo-
dorus discussed the Trojan war and the return of Ulysses.’
Apollodorus writes in a simple and unaffected style, though
sometimes with a brevity which becomes obscure. The work,
as we have it, is undoubtedly incomplete, but there is no eyvi-
dence or reason for concluding that it is a mere compendium
or epitome of the book originally published by Apollodorus.
The title of Bibliotheca, or ‘library,’ which is given to this
treatise in all the manuscripts, was probably not prefixed to it
by Apollodorus himself? It seems more probable that this
title belonged to a collection of works by Apollodorus, of which
we have only the separate names—‘ concerning the gods,’* ‘ con-
cerning the ships im the second book of the liad, * ‘a chro-
nicle,’® in iambic verse, containing the annals of 1040 years
from the taking of Troy down to B.c. 143, and a gazetteer in
comic verse, like the treatises still extant by Seymnus and
Dionysius.’ The epigram applied by Photius to the Bibliotheca,
as we have 10,70 would more truly describe this comprehensive
collection of treatises. Besides these books, Apollodorus wrote,

1 According to Welcker (Der Epische Cyclus, I. p. 92), the following is the
succession of the epic poems as they were arranged by Apollodorus. Book I.
The Theogony, with the Titanomachy and Gigantomachy, the Heroogony, Thebais,
Corinthiaca, Melampodia, Argonaute. Book II. The Phoronis, Danais, the
Heraclea of Peisander, the Minyas, the taking of chalia, Hgimius. Book III.
Europe, Dionysiaca, Cidipodia, the Epigoni (as distinct from the Thebais), the
Hymn to Mercury, the Cypria, the Trojan war as far as the Odyssey, and
perhaps the Telogonia, with which Dictys ends. That the book included the
adventures of Ulysses we know from I. 3, 4: Σειρῆνες περὶ ὧν ἐν τοῖς περὶ ᾽Οδύσ-
σεως ἐροῦμεν. Photius, Cod. CLXXXVI.: ἐπιτρέχων καὶ τῶν ἀπὸ Τροίας πλάνας
τινάς, μάλιστα δ᾽ ᾽Οδυσσέως, εἰς ὃν αὐτῷ καὶ ἡ ἀρχαιολογία καταλήγει.

2 This is the opinion of Clavier, in the preface to his edition of Apollodorus, and
of Welcker, Ep. Cycl. p. 89. See also Miller, Fr. Hist. Gr. pp. XXXVIIL. sqq.

3 περὶ θεῶν, in at least twenty-four books, in which he explained the mythology
by means of allegories and etymologies, after the Stoic fashion.

4 περὶ νεῶν καταλόγου, in twelve books, partly derived from Demetrius of Scepsis
(Strabo VIII. p. 522), and Eratosthenes (id. p. 457).

5 χρονικὴ σύνταξις. Scymnus of Chios, v. 16 sqq.

6 περὶ γῆς, or περιήγησις, in at least two books ; see Steph. Byz. s.v. ᾽Ἃ βυλλοι
et alibi.

7 Cod. CLXXVI. : ἔχει δὲ καὶ ἐπίγραμμα τὸ βιβλιοδάριον οὐκ ἄκομψον τόδε" ᾿...

αἰῶνος σπειρήματ᾽ ἀφυσσάμενος ἀπ᾽ ἐμεῖο #4
παιδείης μύθους γνῶθι παλαιγενέας" (

ERATOSTHENES. 483

like Aristophanes of Byzantium and Eratosthenes, ‘on the
courtesans of Athens ;’* he contributed to the literary history
of Sophron? and Epicharmus ;’ and showed his connexion with
the school of Aristarchus by a treatise ‘on etymologies.’ *

The most valuable characteristic of the historical learning of
Alexandria was the attention which these scholars paid to chro-
nology. The Atthidist Philochorus, who was, no doubt, in some
sense their model, had set them an example in this respect, and
he had been preceded by Timeeus.’ But the first foundation
of scientific chronology was laid at Alexandria by the great
EratostHENnes, whose various labours we shall discuss at the
end of this chapter. Besides the works of Philochorus and
Timeeus, Eratosthenes had before him the chronological compu-
tations of his own teacher and countryman Callimachus, and
his views were adopted and presented in a metrical form by
Apollodorus, the pupil of Aristarchus, in the chronological work
dedicated to Attalus, of which we have just spoken. That the
chronology of Apollodorus was based entirely on that of Era-
tosthenes is distinctly stated by Strabo ;° a Byzantine chrono-
grapher of the ninth century a.p., Georgius, who is generally
known by his title of Syncellus or colleague and associate of
the Patriarch Tarasius, in giving the lists of Theban kings
which he found in Apollodorus, speaks as if it were merely an
extract from Eratosthenes,’ and modern Egyptologers have so
regarded it.’ The main effort of Eratosthenes was to establish
the Trojan xra, which he, and Apollodorus after him, fixed in
1183 or 1184 B.c., and the greatest modern authorities are
agreed in regarding this as merely ‘a conjectural date origin-

und és‘Ounpeinv σελίδ᾽ ἔμβλεπε, μηδ᾽ ἐλεγείην,
μὴ τραγικὴν μοῦσαν μηδὲ μελογραφίην,

μὴ κυκλίων ζήτει πολύθρουν στίχον" εἰς ἐμὲ δ᾽ ἀθρῶν
εὑρήσεις ἐν ἐμοὶ πάνθ᾽ ὅσα κόσμος ἔχει.

1 Athen, XIII. p. 567 A, 583 Ὁ. 2 Jd. III. p. 89 A

3 In at least six books, Suid. 5. v. καρδιώττειν. ᾿Απολλόδωρος ἑν ἕκτῳ περὶ
*Exixdppov.

4 περὶ ἐτυμολογιῶν or ἐτυμολογουμένων, in at least two books, Athen. II. p. 63 Ὁ.

5 Above, chapter XLIII. ὃ 6; below, chapter XLIX. ὃ 1.

6 Strabo, VII. p. 298 sqq.

7 Syncellus, Chronogr. p. 91, quoted by Bunsen, Zgypten, III. p. 61.

8. Bunsen, gypten, I. p. 158.

It 2

484 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

ally fixed by Eratosthenes, and derived from him to succeeding
chronologers.’' But, although the actual year of this starting
point in Greek chronology may be regarded as approximate
only, and resting on probable inference rather than on absolute
certainty, we are not the less indebted to Eratosthenes for the
laborious studies by which he arrived at his conclusions. And
Mr. Clinton, who has reminded us that a conjectural date can
never rise to the authority of evidence, has been careful to
record his opinion? that ‘the chronology of Eratosthenes,
founded on a careful comparison of circumstances, and approved
by those to whom the same stores of information were open,
is entitled to our respect.’

δ 5. The want of documentary evidence, which thus qualifies
the value of the Greek chronology of Eratosthenes and Apollo-
dorus, is not to be alleged in disparagement of the chronological
lists of the Egyptian kings which were drawn up by Erato-
sthenes and Manetho from the copious and authentic records
of the wonderful country of which Alexandria had become the
capital. The practice of committing to writing the chronicles
of their native monarchs which the Egyptians had adopted
from the first dawn of their history,’ the lasting significance of
their hieroglyphic symbols, the durability of the material on
which they were carved, and the dryness of the climate which
rendered these stony archives indestructible,* had provided Egypt
with records of the past unrivalled in antiquity and genuine-
ness. The Ptolemies, who gladly accepted the flattering homage
of the Egyptian priests, and allowed themselves to be addressed
as the successors of the ancient Pharaohs,’ eventually conse-
erated temples to Ammon, Phre, and Phtha, as well as to the

1 Clinton, 7. H. 1. p. 123; II. p. IV. Béckh, Corp. Inser. II. p. 328. Cf.
Miller, Fragm. Hist. Grec. p. 568 ; Grote, Hist. of Greece, II. pp. 47 sqq-

* FH.’ p. 138.

* It has been shown that the system of hieroglyphic writing was quite complete
in Egypt in the fourth dynasty, that is, in the fifth century of the kingdom, and
even the names of kings of the third dynasty are written according to this system
(Bunsen, I. p. 363).

4 See the remarks of Lepsius, Chronologie der Aigypter, I. pp. 28 sqq.

5 Thus, on the Rosetta Table, Ptolemy is glorified as ὃν ὁ Ἥφαιστος ἐδοκίμασεν,
ᾧ ὁ Ἥλιος ἔδωκεν τὴν νίκην, εἰκὼν ζῶσα τοῦ Διός, vids τοῦ Ἡλίου, αἰωνόβιος, ἠγαπη-
μένος ὑπὸ τοῦ Φθᾶ.

ERATOSTHENES. 485

Sarapis of Alexandria, and our clue to the interpretation of the
ancient hieroglyphics is derived from a tri-lingual inscription,
in which Ptolemy Epiphanes is commemorated, not only in his
own Greek, but in hieroglyphic and demotic versions of it.!
Under these circumstances, it was quite natural that, on the
one hand, the Greek scholars of the Museum would make
themselves acquainted with the old language of Egypt, and the
hieroglyphic system of writing in which the records of the
country were locked up; and, on the other hand, that Egyp-
tian priests and scribes would become familiar with the language
of the court, and would display their own inherited learning in
what had become the general idiom of the civilized world. In
regard to the history and chronology of Egypt we have two
remarkable examples of these counter processes. For before
_the great scholar Eratosthenes of Cyrene learned the old Egyp-
tian of the hieroglyphics in order that he might draw up
lists of the Pharaohs, and approximate to the chronology of the
ancient dynasties, Manetho of Sebennytus, a native Egyptian
priest, who flourished in the reigns of the first two of the
Ptolemies, had become a master of the Greek language, per-
haps under the teaching of Timotheus, the interpreter of
Ptolemy Soter, and had written, for the edification of the new
masters of his country, on the history and chronology of
ancient Egypt, and on the religion and science of the Egyp-
tians.2 From what sources Diczearchus, the scholar of Aristotle,
had derived his statements with regard to the ancient history
and chronology of Egypt, for a knowledge of which we are
indebted to the Alexandrine scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes,’
we have no means of ascertaining; but there is no doubt that
the researches of Eratosthenes, which we know through Apollo-
dorus and Georgius Syncellus,* rested on a study of the original

1 The Rosetta table, now in the British Museum, was discovered by the French
artillery officer Bouchard, in 1799, and became the property of England when the
French were expelled from Egypt.

2 Euseb. Prep. Evangel... Prowm. ad Lit. 11. p. 44 ¢. (p. 52 Heinichen): πᾶσαν
μὲν οὖν τὴν Αὐγυπτιακὴν ἱστορίαν els πλάτος τῶν Ἑλλήνων μετείληφε φωνῆς, ἰδίως
τε καὶ τὰ περὶ τῆς κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς θεολογίας Μανεθὼς ὁ Αἰγύπτιος ἔν τε ἣ ἔγραψεν ἱερᾷ
βίβλῳ καὶ ἐν ἑτέροις αὐτοῦ συγγράμμασιν.

3 See the passages quoted in Bunsen, gypten, III., Urkundenbuch, pp. 68.

4 Id. ibid. pp. 61 sqq.

486 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

monuments of Egypt, and though they are confined to the
Memphito-Thebaic kings, they are still our chief authority for
the restoration of the first thirteen dynasties; and all that
modern investigation has attempted for the exhibition of a con-
sistent view of old Egyptian chronology is deduced from a com-
parison between the fragments of Eratosthenes and Manetho,
and the names of the kings still preserved in the hieroglyphic
tables of Carnak and Abydos.

The illustrious Manretuo, whose name Ma-n-théth or Thoth-
ma, ‘given by Thoth or Mercury,’ is a synonym of the Greek
Hermodotus or Hermodorus,’ although belonging to the compa-
ratively late period of Alexandrian literature, has come down to
us shrouded in a mist of legend? And while his genuine works
exist only in fragments and quotations, or in epitomes of doubtful
accuracy, his name has been given to an astronomical poem in
six books, called ἀποτελεσματικά, which has been proved to be as
late as the fifth century a.p.,* and to a book on Sothis, or the
dog-star, intentionally forged for the purpose of reconciling the
old Egyptian chronology with that of the Jews and Christians.‘
There can be no doubt, however, after the elaborate researches
of Bunsen and others, that Manetho of Sebennytus was a real,
historical personage, who flourished in the reigus of Soter and
Philadelphus, and deserved what he obtained, the highest
reputation for judgment and learning. An old tradition,
‘which is not certain but cannot be refuted,’ places him in the

1 This is Bunsen’s opinion (4gypten, I. p. gt). Lepsius (Chronol. I. p. 405),
with whom Parthey confidently agrees (ad Plutarch. Js. et Osirid. p. 180), says that
the Egyptian form was Mai-en-Thoth, ‘beloved by Thoth.’ Fruin (Maneth. reliqu.
1847, p. XXVIII.) supposes the original form to have been Ma-net or Ma-Neith
= qui Neith (¢.e., Minervam) amat.

2 Bockh (Manetho und die Hundssternperiode, Berlin, 1845, p. 394) says: ‘na-
mentlich ist mir niemals ein verwirrterer Gegenstand der Betrachtung, als dieser
Manetho vorgekommen.’

3 See Heyne, Opuscul. I. 95. Rigler and Axt, Comment. in Manethonis A poteles-
matica, Colon. 1832, pp. III. sqq. XXXIV.

4 Bunsen, Zgypten, I. pp. 256 sqq. Lepsius, Chronologie, I. p. 413 sqq-

5 Bockh, Manetho, p. 395. This tradition is shown by the dedication of his
Sothis, which has been fabricated in consequence of the old belief, and by the
mention of Ptolemy and Arsinoe in the Apotelesmatica. Hengstenberg, who
always reasons with a set purpose, and with the one-sidedness of an advocate, con-
tends that Manetho was not an Egyptian, and probably lived under the Roman
Emperors (die Biicher Moses und 4igypten, pp. 237 sqq. 256, 264).

MANETHO. 487

reign of Philadelphus, and the anecdote about the introduction
of the god Sarapis, which is almost our only certain detail
about his life, falls, according to Cyril, in Ol. 124 (284—281
B.c.),' and may therefore be placed at the very end of Soter’s
life. This story, which is told by Plutarch in the book on
Isis and Osiris? mostly taken, as Bunsen thinks,’ from the
theological works of Manetho, is as follows. Ptolemy Soter
saw in a dream the Sinopic statue of Pluto, which ordered the
king to transfer him with all speed to Alexandria. Ptolemy,
who had never seen the image itself, and did not know where
it was to be found, was enabled to identify it by the description
of a traveller named Sosibius, and got it from Sinope to Egypt.
When it arrived it was recognized by Timotheus, the king’s
interpreter, and Manetho, as Sarapis, the Egyptian Pluto, or
the Osiris and Dionysus of the lower world; and this new god
was accordingly established at Alexandria, and his worship
ultimately superseded that of the older divinities. This cir-
cumstantial narrative exhibits Manetho to us in important
relations with the king and the Greek religionists of his court,—
for Timotheus was an Eumolpid,‘—and we may infer from it
that he not only introduced the Greeks to a knowledge of the
Egyptian religion and annals, but conspired with the liberal
Timotheus in establishing a form of worship which was not
exclusively Greek or Egyptian, but partook of both systems of
mythology. The genuine works of Manetho were (1) his ‘ holy
book’ (ἱερὰ βίβλος), which discussed the religion of Isis,
Osiris, Apis, Sarapis, and other deities, and was probably the
basis of Plutarch’s well-known treatise, our most valuable
authority on the subject ;° (2) his ‘sketch of natural history’
(φυσικῶν ἐπιτομῇ, Or φυσιολογικά), which seems to have
explained the elementary origin of the Egyptian religion, as it

1 Cyrillus Alex. In Julianum, p. 13 Spanh.

2c, 28, p. 361 Xyl. It is also given by Tacit. Hist. IV. 83, 84; Clemens
Alex. Protrept. IV. 48, p. 42 Potter.

3 Bunsen, Agypten, I. p. 95. =

4 Tac. Hist. 1V. 83: ‘Timotheum Atheniensem, e gente Eumolpidarum, quem ut
antistitem cerimoniarum Eleusine exciverat.’

5 Eusebius, Pr. Hv. II. p. 44 ¢. Cf. Theodoret. Serm. II. De Therapeut. vol.
IV. p. 753: Μανέθως δὲ τὰ περὶ Ἴσιδος καὶ ᾽Οσίριδος καὶ "Απιδος καὶ Σαράπιδος καὶ
τῶν ἄλλων θεῶν τῶν Αἰγυπτίων ἐμυθολόγησε.

488 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

stated, among other things, the identity of Osiris and Isis with
the sun and the moon;’ (3) ‘on a love of antiquity and piety ”
(περὶ ἀρχαϊσμοῦ καὶ εὐσεβείας), which seems to have been a
treatise on the old religious usages of the Egyptians ;? (4) ‘ on
festivals’ (περὶ ἑορτῶν), of which we know nothing beyond a
short notice in Laurentius Lydus;* (5) ‘on the fabrication of
the different kinds of sacred incense’ (περὶ κατασκευῆς τῶν
κυφίων), ἃ work having reference to a specialty of Egyptian
ritual, for Plutarch tells us‘ that the ingredients of the κῦφι
were not mixed at haphazard (ὅπως ἔτυχεν), but according to
fixed sacerdotal receipts; (6) ‘against Herodotus’ (πρὸς
Ἡρόδοτον),᾽ a criticism apparently of those parts of Herodotus
which treated especially of Egypt ; but Bunsen supposes’ that it
might have been an extract from the next work, made by those
who wished to impugn the accuracy of the Greek historian ;
(7) ‘commentaries on Egypt’? (Αἰγυπτιακά or Αἰγυπτιακὰ
ὑπομνήματα), in three books. In this book, which has
furnished the modern Egyptologers, Rosellini, Wilkinson,
Boéckh, Bunsen, and Lepsius, with the materials for their
criticisms, Manetho, besides dealing with the astronomical
periods of the ante-historical mythology, elaborately reckoned
up 3555 years, from Menes to the death of the younger
Nectanebus, and in doing this formed a chronological canon,
which must have influenced the calculations of Eratosthenes
and Apollodorus.2 In drawing up this chronology, it is clear
that he did not content himself with adding together the sums
of the years in the different reigns, for this would have given a
much greater number of years, but that he learned, by an
examination of the traditions, that many of the kings in the
lists were contemporary rulers, and that the general result was

1 Diog. Laért. Proem. §§ το, 11. Suidas calls it φυσιολογικά. It is referred to
by 4élian, Hist. An. X. τό.

2 Porphyr. De Abstinentid, II. 55 ; Euseb. Pr. Ev. IV. τό, 1, p. 164, Heinichen.

3 p. o1, Bekker. 4 De Iside et Osir. ο. 81.

5 Joseph. ὁ. Apion. I. 14; Eustath. ad 11. λ' p. 857; Etym. M. 5. v. λεοντοκόμος.

6. gypten, I. p. 100.

? That the latter is the true title is conjectured by Béckh (Manetho, p. 395) from
the Latin version of the Armenian Eusebius, which cites it as Manethi 4igyptiaca
Monumenta.

8 Bunsen, “gypten, I. p. 122 sqq.

HECATZUS, BEROSUS. 489

to be estimated on independent grounds. When the Egyptian
learning of Manetho had been followed by the scientific chro-
nology of which Eratosthenes was the founder, Greek literature
had passed through all the epochs of its dealings with the
history of the Pharaohs. In Herodotus, as has been well
observed,' we have the genial Greek, in Manetho the dry and
documeutary Egyptian, and in Eratosthenes the critical Alex-
andrian, and in the combination and intermixture of these three
sources of information, we obtain all the reliable information
which we can derive from ancient times to aid us in the inter-
pretation of the half understood hieroglyphics.

Hecarzvus of Appera, who is often confounded with his
older namesake Hecatzeus of Miletus, travelled as far as Syria
in the train of Alexander the Great, and seems to have acquired
the language of the Jews,’ whose history he wrote. He was
also a writer on Egyptian history, and had travelled up the
Nile as far as Thebes. A work on the Hyperboreans is attri-
buted to him,’ but we know little or nothing about it.

A contemporary of Manetho, Βεκοβυβ (i.e. Bar-Oseas) of
Babylon, performed the same good office for the history of his
own countrymen that the Egyptian priest had undertaken in
regard to his own sacred archives.‘ It cannot be determined
whether this Greek version of Assyrian and Babylonian history
was suggested by what had just been done in Egypt, or whether
it was a similar result of similar causes. Berosus had the
charge of the temple of Belus at Babylon, and, as he had acquired
the Greek language, it was quite natural that he should en-
deavour to recommend himself to the Greek dynasty, which
was established in his country, by a version of the archives
which were under his care, and which enabled him to show both

1 Bunsen, gypten, I. p. 176.

3 Whether the work ‘about Abraham and the Egyptians,’ from which Clemens
Alexandrinus (Strom. V. p. 717, Potter) quotes a fragment of Sophocles, was
included in the history of the Jews (Joseph. c. Apion. I. 22 ; ef. Ant. I. 7), or in the
history of Egypt (Diod. I. 47), it seems to presume an acquaintance with Gen.
XII. τὸ sqq:, or the document from which that narrative was derived.

8 Diodor, 11. 47 ; lian, H. A. XI. 1, alii.

* Lepsius, Chronol. I. p. 10: ‘He dedicated his history to Antiochus Soter of
Syria, a little before Manetho had dedicated his Egyptian history to Ptolemy
Philadelphus.’

490 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

his own learning and the ancient glory of the Babylonians.
The work, which he published in three books, and which is
known to us only from the fragments preserved by the later
writers, is sometimes quoted as his ‘ Babylonian annals’
(Βαϑυλωνικα), sometimes as his ‘ Chaldean history? (Χαλδαϊκά,
Χαλδαϊκαὶ ἱστορίαι). It brought his history down to B.c. 269,
and had derived dates from the inscriptions on the bricks,
probably cuneiform, which enabled him to carry back his
chronology to an astronomical period of 480,000 years ; and his
work contained an account of the cosmogony and deluge, which
are probably reflected in the annals of the Jews.? ΑΒΥΡΕΝΒ,
who wrote on Assyrian history, has been considered by some
to have been a scholar of Berosus, with whose works he was
undoubtedly acquainted. He also quotes from MrcastuEnes,
a friend of Seleucus Nicator,* who wrote a work about India in
four books. Whether this work was derived from native
documents is unknown. It was regarded as a standard autho-
rity by Arrian and other later writers on the subject of India.
Pliny’ mentions that one Dionysius was sent by Ptolemy
Philadelphus to pursue his researches in- India, while Mega.
sthenes was there ; we do not know what were the results of this
mission. It is quite uncertain when Mznanpzr published the
Pheenician history from native sources which is quoted by
Josephus.°

While the Greeks at Alexandria and elsewhere thus gained
a knowledge of the annals and religious books of the nations
to which the conquests of Alexander the Great had carried
their victorious arms, the same curiosity gave birth to a trans-
lation which has exercised a more lasting influence on the
civilized world than that of any book that has ever appeared
in a new tongue. There is a tradition, attributed falsely to

1 Athen. XIV. p. 639; Clemens Alex. Strom. I. p. 392, Potter; Protrept.
p- 57, Potter.

2 See Niebuhr’s Lectures on Ancient History, I. p. 18, and compare Ohr. Orthod.
pp. 131, 221.

3 Cyrill. Alex. in Julianum, pp. 8, 9.

4 Clem. Alex. Strom. I. p. 360, Potter.

5 Ἢ, Ν. VI. 17, 58: ‘sicut Megasthenes, et Dionysius a Philadelpho missus ex
e4 causa, vires quoque gentium prodidere.’

8 ¢, Apion. 1. 18; cf. Clem, Alex. Strom. I. p. 140.

TRANSLATORS OF THE SEPTUAGINT. 491

Aristeas, and generally rejected as fabulous,’ that when Deme-
trius Phalereus persuaded Ptolemy to get the Jewish books
translated into Greek, Aristeas suggested an expedient by
means of which the high priest of Jerusalem was induced to
send the king seventy-two picked translators, six from each
tribe (ten of the tribes having vanished long before this time !);
and that in seventy-two days the work was accomplished with
miraculous fidelity, each of the translators having been shut
up in a separate cell, and each having executed the whole
version in the same words and letters!* There is only one
circumstance more wonderful than this story, namely, that any
men of sense and learning should have given it a moment’s
attention.* The origin of the Alexandrine version of the Old
Testament, and the cause of the name—‘ that of the seventy,’
or Septuagint—by which it is still known, can only be inferred
from a careful study of the translation, and an examination of
the literary history of the Jewish books themselves.“ The
Jewish collection of sacred books was gradually formed, after the
return from the captivity, in the three divisions, still recognized
by the Jews themselves—namely, (a) the Law or Pentateuch,
i.e. the five books attributed to Moses; (4) the historical and
prophetical books; and (c) the miscellaneous works called
Hagiographa, sometimes designated from the book of Psalms,
itself a miscellaneous collection in five parts,> which was
placed at the head of this division of the Jewish literature.
This collection of the Jewish books themselves was going on
from B.c. 446, when the Jews were restored, to B.c. 131, the

1 It was first doubted by Lud. Vives in a note on August. C. D. XVIII. 42,
_and by the great Scaliger on Eusebius Chron. p. 133. The complete rejection of

the story is due to Humphry Hody, who wrote a tract on the subject in 1685, and
returned to it in his great work, De Biblior. Textibus Originalibus, Oxon. 1705,
pp. I.—XXXVI.; see also H. G. J. Thiersch, De Pentateuchi Versione Alexan-
drina, Erlang. 1841, pp. 6 sqq.

2 The statement of the separate cells is Justin Martyr’s story ; Epiphanius is
contented with thirty-six cells, one for every two of the translators.

3 The fiction is defended by Usher, Voss, Walton, and even to some extent by
Valckenaer.

4 We have discussed this question at length in a book entitled Christian Ortho-
dowy reconciled with the Conclusions of Modern Biblical Learning, London, 1857,
pp. r89-26r.

5 See Jashar, Berolini, 1854, pp. 315, 333-

492 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

thirty-eighth year of Euergetes II., when the son of Sirach speaks
of the Greek version as complete.‘ Now, the Greek version of
the Pentateuch, which seems to be the work of one writer,’ corre-
sponds remarkably to the Samaritan text, which was taken from
Jerusalem by Manasseh in the reign of Darius Codomannus (B.¢.
336—331);° and as the name of ‘ the seventy’ may very well
refer to the number of members in the Jewish Sanhedrim, it is
reasonable to conclude that the renegade priest adopted a text
which was at that time formally sanctioned at Jerusalem, and that
the same text, with the same sanction, formed the basis of the
version made for the use of the numerous Jews whom Alex-
ander settled in Egypt soon after the time of Manasseh and
Sanballat. The Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, made by
Nathaniel a little before our era, and the Targum of Onkelos,
who flourished about the same time, also concur in many points
with the Septuagint, where it differs from the Masoretic text, so
that this.agreement alone would not prove the early date of
the Septuagint Pentateuch. But the necessities of the Jews at
Alexandria, the step already taken by Manasseh, the natural
curiosity of the Greeks of the Museum, stimulated by the
labours of Manetho and Berosus, justify the conclusion that
there must be a basis of truth in the tradition that the be-
giuning of the Greek version of the Jewish books was made in
the reigns of the first two of the Ptolemies. The rest of the
translation was of course not undertaken or authorized until
the original books had found a place in the Jewish canon.
Attention has been directed to marks of time in the separate
books. A Gallic word (γαισός) found in Joshua* has been
taken for an evidence that this book was not translated till
after the Gallic imvasion of B.c. 277. It is inferred from the

1 Σοφία Σείραχ, πρόλογος, vv. 6, 16. He counts from the beginning of the
joint sovereignty of Physcon in B.c. 169.

3 Hody entertained a contrary opinion: ‘sed istam Hodii opinionem,’ says
Thiersch, u.s., p. 12, ‘Sturzius quidem, uti dictum est, negavit, qui Pentateuchi,
inquit, versio ab uno auctore videtur profecta esse, nemo autem, quantum novimus,
refutavit,’ and he proceeds to prove that there is, at all events there was, an uni-
formity of plan and method in the version of the Pentateuch.

3 Joseph. Antigu. XI. 7, §2, 8, 82, 4, 6. See Gesenius, De Pentateuch. Samar.
origine, indole, et auctoritate.

4 Joshua VIII. 18: ἔκτεινον τὴν χεῖρά cov ἐν τῷ γαισῷ τῷ ἐν τῇ χειρί σου ἐπὶ τὴν.
πόλιν. Of. Athen. VI. p. 273, and see Hody, p. 178 sqq.

TRANSLATORS OF THE SEPTUAGINT. 493

termination of the book of Esther’ that it was not translated
till the reign of Philometor (s.c. 181—146), and other in-
dications are remarked in others of the later books. The
Pentateuch and the book of Proverbs are the most carefully
translated, but, at the best, we find great defects in the ver-
sion. Its authors reading the Hebrew rolls without vowel
points, which were a later invention, and apparently with an
imperfect knowledge of Hebrew, which had ceased to be their
vernacular language, adopted strange corruptions of the original
words,” or sometimes indulged in the rashest conjectures.*
The book of Job was translated by a man who was well
acquainted with Greek, and had but a smattering of Hebrew;
the Psalms and Prophets were rendered by Jews who had no
literary merit, and whose knowledge of the sacred language
was very imperfect;‘ and the Septuagint translation of the book
of Daniel, probably the latest work of the Jewish canon, is so
unlike the Masoretic text, that the Christian Church adopted
the later version of Theodotion.? But with all its imequalities

' Esther X. 43—47.

2 For example, the common confusion of vesh and daleth, together with the
substitution of the ordinary meaning of the preposition -by for a more refined
and idiomatic usage of the word, led them. to read ὉΠ or on for ἘΠῚ in Levit.
XIX. 26, and to render it μὴ ἔσθετε ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρέων, instead of ἐπὶ τῷ αἵματι, which
is, after all, a good Greek idiom.

3 See, for example, the strange confusion which they have made of Gen. IV. 7.

4 Hichhorn, Hinleitwng, § 166.

5 Jerome, Prefat. in Danielem: ‘Dan. juxta LXX. interpretes Dom. Saly.
Ecclesiz non legunt, utentes Theodotionis editione ; et cur hoc acciderit nescio ;
hoe unum affirmare possum, quod multum a veritate discordat, et recto judicio
repudiatur.’ - The Greek version of Daniel is interesting, as exhibiting to us
the process of editorship, while it was still going on, and before the Masoretic
texts were fixed in their subsequently unalterable form. It is clear that there
were two editions or recensions of the book of Daniel concurring in many points,
but differing in a sort of reciprocal avoidance of the most startling impossibilities.
That followed by the LXX. omits the strange story about the magi, who were
ordered to describe the dream, as well as to interpret it (Dan. IV. 3—6); also
the speech of Daniel in V. 17—22. On the other hand, the Masoretic text
omits the equally improbable prayer of Asariah, and the song of the three intended
martyrs in the midst of the flames, where there is a manifest gap after the twenty-
third verse of the third chapter. That the LXX. was in this and other additions
a bond fide translation of a Hebrew-Chaldee original, is clear from the reasons
given by Rosenmiiller (Prowemium, ὃ VII.). These indications of the process of
literary revision, in the case of one of the latest canonical books, support the infe-

494 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

and defects, this Alexandrine translation of the Jewish books
exercised a wonderful influence on the world at large.

The Masoretic editorship of the Jewish schools continued in
active operation down to the year 506 a.p.; and till the publi-
cation of the Massorah in that year, the Hebrew text was liable
to constant emendation. But the name of the Septuagint
seems to point to an early canonization by the Sanhedrim, to
the exclusion of other books written in Greek, but not trans-
lated from the Hebrew, which we now call by their Greek
name, the Apocrypha. All the references by the earliest
Christian writers are to this version rather than to the Hebrew
text, and we can conceive that it was regarded with a veneration
which was not paid by the Hellenizing Jews to the unknown
tongue of the original. It had, in fact, received the imprimatur
of the Greek Jews of Alexandria, who claimed the same
authority as their brethren at Babylon and Tiberias, and spoke
and wrote a language intelligible to the civilized world; and it
was connected with the general renown of the grammarians of
the Museum, and was probably influenced by the contemporary
school of Aristarchus, for it can hardly be doubted that the
arrangement of the canonical books in twenty-four parts, which
was completed about the time when Aristarchus similarly
divided the Homeric poems according to the number of letters
in the Greek alphabet, was suggested by this arbitrary method
of the Alexandrian scholar, and that the subsequent change to
twenty-two parts, according to the number of letters in the
Hebrew alphabet,? was merely a correction made by the
Masorethz to accommodate their subdivision to the rationale
of the Alexandrian critics, which they had previously adopted
without understanding its meaning.

§ 6. It can hardly be said that the Egyptian researches,

rence that something of the same kind took place with all the publications of the
Jews after their return from exile. The intimate acquaintance which the writer of
Daniel shows (in the eleventh chapter) with the history of Egypt under the
Ptolemies, indicates his connexion with Alexandria. The story about Alexander
and the book of Daniel (Josephus, Antiqu. XI. 8, ὃ 5, p. 56, 1. 9, Bekker) is a
transparent fiction.

1 See below, chapter LITI. § 1.

2 See the two arrangements.as given by Bishop Beveridge, Works (Anglo- Cathot.
Libr.) vol. VII. pp. 202, 209.

THE MATHEMATICIANS. 495

which produced such important effects on the historical and
chronological knowledge of the scholars of the Museum, led
also to the wonderful advance in pure and applied mathematics
which took place at Alexandria, or was mainly due to the
learned men who settled in that city. Herodotus, indeed, is
careful to tell us’ that in his opinion the Greeks derived
their knowledge of geometry from the Egyptians, just as they
learned from the Babylonians the concave hemispherical sun-
dial (πόλος), the means of ascertaining the period of noon
(γνώμων), and the division of the day into twelve equal parts ;
a similar belief was entertained by Plato;? and Anticleides made
Pythagoras only an improver of the geometry of Meeris.* Land-
surveying was known in Egypt at a very early period,* mathe-
matics and their applications were discussed in the sacred books
of Hermes,’ and the hieroglyphics give us some specimens of
the geometrical knowledge of the people.’ On the other hand,
we have stories which show that the Greeks were before the
Egyptians in many applications of exact science. According to
Hieronymus,’ Thales astonished the Egyptians by the simple
method of determining the height of the Pyramids from the
measurement of their shadows. The Pythagorean theorem, as
it is called, though connected with some mysterious speculations
of the Egyptians,* may have been discovered geometrically by
Pythagoras himself, who undoubtedly may claim the demon-
stration of the musical intervals ;° and the quadrature of the
lunula and the properties of conic sections seem to belong to

1 TI. rog. 3 Phedrus, p. 274, C. Ὁ.

3 Diog. Laért. VIII. 11: τοῦτον καὶ γεωμετρίαν ἐπὶ πέρας ἀγαγεῖν, Μοίριος πρώ-
Tou εὑρόντος τὰς ἀρχὰς τῶν στοιχείων αὐτῆς, ὥς φησιν. Αντικλείδης ἐν δευτέρῳ περὶ
᾿Αλεξάνδρου. 4 Genesis XLVII. 20.

5 This appears from the remarkable passage in Clemens Alex. Strom. VI. pp.
757 sqq. Potter, on which see the remarks of Lepsius, Chronologie, I. pp. 45, 46.

6 See Lepsius, dber eine Hieroglyphische Inschrift am Tempel von Edfu, Berlin,
1855, who shows how the Greek geometry was expressed in the language of ancient
Egypt.

7 Apud Diog. Laért. I. 27: ὁ δὲ Ιερώνυμος καὶ ἐκμετρῆσαί φησιν αὐτὸν τὰς πυρα-
μίδας, ἐκ τῆς σκιᾶς παρατηρήσαντα ὅτε ἡμῖν ἰσομεγέθεις εἰσί. Pliny, H. N. XXXVI.
12, § 17: ‘mensuram altitudinis earum omnemque similem deprehendere invenit
Thales Milesius umbram metiendo, qua hora par esse corpori solet.’

8 On the γαμήλιον διάγραμμα, see Plut. de Iside et Osir., p. 373 Εἰ, and above,
ch. XXXITX. § 9. 9 Bickh, Philolaus, pp. 65—8q.

496 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

Greek geometers. And although Eudoxus of Cnidus visited
Egypt, and is said to have brought his theory of the planets
from that country,’ the respect which was paid to his talents in
the land of the Pharaohs’ shows that he imported at least as
much knowledge as he carried away with him. At any rate, the
great geometers of the Ptolemaic period owe their reputation to
their own original methods of investigation, or to the skill and
clearness with which they expounded the doctrines of their
predecessors. They rather brought their science to Egypt than
found it there.

The greatest mathematicians of antiquity, Euclid, Apollonius
of Perga, and at a later period Diophantus, Pappus, Theon,
and his daughter Hypatia; the most eminent mechanicians,
Archimedes of Syracuse, Ctesibius of Asora, and Hero of
Alexandria; the illustrious astronomers, Timochares of Alexan-
dria, Aristyllus of Samos, and Hipparchus of Nicza; Erato-
sthenes, the founder of scientific geography, and Claudius
Ptolemeeus, who systematized his labours, were all connected,
either indirectly or immediately, with the school of Alexandria.
We must confine ourselves to a notice of those who occupied
an initiatory position m regard to specific branches of pure
mathematics or their applications.

Evciepes, or, as we call him familiarly, σοι Τρ, the prince
of geometers, whose name is almost a synonym for the science
he taught so well, and whose classical work is still a manual of
instruction in the chief mathematical school of this country,
furnishes us with few materials for a literary biography. There
is no distinct statement in the Greek authorities respecting the
place of his birth. Oriental traditions make him the offspring
of Greek parents settled at Tyre, perhaps a confusion with
Cyrene, where Turoporvs had an eminent school of geometry.
Like his namesake Eucleides of Megara, with whom he used to
be confounded, he stands in a certain relation to Tuzzretvs,’

1 Seneca, Quest: Natur. VII. 3.

2 This is implied in the story about the ox Apis licking his garment (Diog. Laért.
VIII. 90, 91.)

3 It is not at all improbable that the story told by Valerius Maximus (VIII. 12)
has substituted the name of Euclid either for that of Theztetus, or for that of
Eudoxus, both of whom were pupils of Plato, and both predecessors, and perhaps
teachers, of the geometrician of Alexandria.

EUCLID. 497

the hero of Plato’s dialogue of that name, which, as we have
seen, is supposed to be narrated by the Megaric philosopher
about the time of the battle of Corinth, B.c. 395. This
Thezetetus, who was remarkable for his personal resemblance to
Socrates, is said by Plato, and is understood hy Diogenes
Laértius,' to have had some instructive intercourse with that
great philosopher just before his death, when Theztetus was a
mere boy; he was a favourite pupil of Theodorus, the great
geometrician of Cyrene; and from the language of Proclus,? it
appears that Euclid, whether or not a Cyrenzan himself, was
settled at Athens, and not only became an attached disciple of
Plato, but in a certain sense continued and completed the
geometrical works of Theztetus, and systematized what had
been done by Evpoxus of Cnidus. He came to Alexandria in
the reign of the first Ptolemy, and almost the only incident of
his life which is known to us is a conversation between him
and that king; for Ptolemy having asked if there was no easier
method of learning the science, Euclid is said to have replied
that ‘ there was no royal path to geometry’ (μὴ εἶναι βασιλικὴν
ἄτραπον πρὸς γεωμετρίαν). But though we know so little of
Euclid’s personal history, we cannot doubt that he founded a
famous school of geometry at Alexandria, and produced the
greatest influence on men like Eratosthenes and Archimedes,
the latter of whom refers to him by name.

The work for which Euclid is most famous is his Elements
(στοιχεῖα) of Pure Mathematics, which consist of thirteen books
written by Euclid himself, and two attributed to Hypsicles of
Alexandria in the second century of our era.‘ The want of a

1 TI. 29: ὥσπερ τὸν Θεαίτητον περὶ ἐπιστήμης διαλεχθεὶς ἔνθεον ἀπέπεμψε καθὰ
καὶ Πλάτων φησίν.

3 Proclus in Zucl. II. 4, p. 19, ed. Basil. 1532: διῆγον δὲ οὗτοι μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων
ἐν ᾿Ακαδημείᾳ κοινὰς ποιούμενοι Tas ζητήσεις. Ἑρμότιμος δὲ ὁ Κολοφώνιος τὰ ὑπὲρ
Evddéov προηυπορημένα καὶ Θεαιτήτου προήγαγεν ἐπὶ πλέον καὶ τῶν στοιχείων πολλὰ
ἀνεῦρε καὶ τῶν τόπων τινὰ συνέγραψεν .. .. .. οὐ πολὺ δὲ τούτων νεώτερός ἐστιν
Ἐῤκλείδης, ὁ τὰ στοιχεῖα συναγαγὼν, καὶ πολλὰ μὲν τῶν Εὐδόξου συντάξας, πολλὰ δὲ
τῶν Θεαιτήτου τελεωσάμενος, ἔτι δὲ τὰ μαλακώτερον δεικνύμενα τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν εἰς
ἀνελέγκτους ἀπεδείξεις ἀναγαγών . . . . . καὶ τῇ προαιρέσει δὲ Πλατωνικός ἐστι καὶ τῇ
φιλοσοφίᾳ ταύτῃ οἰκεῖος.

3 Proclus, u.s.

4 Mr. De Morgan, who concludes that Hypsicles did not write earlier than
A.D. 550, makes the following remarks respecting the two books of the Elements

Vou. Il. K K

498 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

convenient system of arithmetical notation obliged the Greeks
to treat many subjects geometrically, which we deal with by
means of our Arabic numerals or algebraical symbols; and in
all ages it has been a subject of wonder that Euclid and his
predecessors should have been able in almost every case to
adopt the best method that is open to the geometrician. The
first book begins with definitions (ὅροι) and postulates (αἰτή-
para), containing all the necessary assumptions to which Plato
refers in his well-known distribution of the domains of thought ;’
these are followed by the common notions (κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι),
which the translators of Euclid have classed with the first
three of the postulates, and distinguished by the name of
axioms, common and proper Greek term,’ but not used by
Euclid in this case. We have then forty-eight propositions
rising from the simplest constructions to the properties of the
right-angled triangle. The second book treats of the properties
of rectangles contained by the parts of divided lines, with tacit
reference to the doctrine of incommensurables (a\oya). The
third book treats of the properties of the circle, and the fourth
of regular rectilineal figures from the triangle to the quin-
decagon. And thus the first four books contain the doctrine
of plane figures, and may be supposed by a reasonable con-
jecture to contain an improved exposition of the geometry of
Thesetetus. The fifth book, which he is said to have derived
from Eudoxus,* treats of proportion, and the sixth applies this

attributed to this mathematician (Smith’s Dictionary, II. p. 542): ‘It is clear
enough that Euclid did not write them, because they begin with a preface, a
thing which is not found even at the commencement of the Elements, because
that preface makes mention of Apollonius, who came after Euclid, and because the
author states himself to be the pupil of Isidore,’ who, according to Suidas, was
the teacher of Hypsicles.

1 De Republ. VI. p. 511 A: τοῦτο τοίνυν νοητὸν μὲν τὸ εἶδος ἔλεγον, ὑποθέσεσι
δ᾽ ἀναγκαζομένην ψυχὴν χρῆσθαι περὶ τὴν ζήτησιν αὐτοῦ κιτιλ. Μανθάνω, ἔφη, ὅτι
τὸ ὑπὸ ταῖς γεωμετρίαις τε καὶ ταῖς ταύταις ἀδελφαῖς τέχναις λέγεις. See Dr.
Whewell’s paper ‘on Plato’s survey of the sciences,’ Trans. of the Cambridge
Philosoph. Soc. vol. IX. part IV.

2 Aristot. Analyt. Post. I. ἃ, ὃ 7: ἣν δ᾽ ἀνάγκη ἔχειν τὸν ὁτιοῦν μαθησόμενον,
ἀξίωμα" ἔστι γὰρ ἔνια τοιαῦτα" τοῦτο γὰρ μάλιστ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις εἰώθαμεν ὄνομα
λέγειν.

3 It is attributed to Eudoxus in one of the MSS. See Fabric. Bibl. Gr. IV.
p- 12,

EUCLID. 499

theory to the results of the first four books, discussing the
doctrine of similar figures, and involving geometrically the rules
of quadratic equations. The seventh, eighth, and ninth books
treat of the properties of numbers; the tenth considers in
detail the question of irrational quantities ;' the eleventh and
twelfth books give us the elements of solid geometry; and the
five regular solids are discussed in the last three hooks, two of
which, as we have said, are attributed to Hypsicles. This
great work became the subject of special elucidations even in
ancient times, and the commentaries of Proclus, with extracts
from the lectures of Theon of Alexandria, have often been
printed with the Greek editions of the text.

Next in repute to the Elements stand the Data (δεδομένα) of
Euclid, a sort of introduction to analytical geometry, consisting
of ninety-five geometrical propositions, showing that, if certain
properties or ratios are given, others may be deduced conse-
quentially. Professor De Morgan speaks slightingly of this
work,’ but it was a favourite with Sir Isaac Newton. It is
generally published with a preface (προθεωρία) by Marinus of
Naples.

The Phenomena (Pawopeva), or principles of astronomy
(Apxai ἀστρονομίας), discuss some of the geometrical pro-
perties of the sphere, especially with reference to the demon-
stration of the risings and settings of the stars. The work is
cited as Euclid’s by Pappus, and is highly commended by
Delambre.’

Two treatises on music, namely, the introduction to harmonics

1 There is a passage in Plato’s Thewtetus which might lead us to conjecture that
in this part of the work Plato’s friend had furnished Euclid with some of his
materials. Theztetus is made to say (p. 147 C): κινδυνεύεις ἐρωτᾶν οἷον καὶ αὐτοῖς
ἡμῖν ἔναγχος εἰσῆλθε διαλεγομένοις, ἐμοί τε καὶ τῷ σῷ ὁμωνύμῳ τούτῳ
Σωκράτει. Compare the words which follow with the language of Euclid at the
beginning of his tenth book. Proclus (u.s.) attributes to Plato the introduction of
the term προμήκης (Thecetet. p. 148 A, Tim. p. 73 D), who may, however, have
adopted it from Theztetus.

2 Smith’s Dict. II. p. 68: ‘there is not much more in this book of Data than
an intelligent student picks up from the Elements themselves, on which account we
cannot consider it as a great step in geometrical analysis.’

3 Hist. de V Astron. Anc. I. p. 51: ‘ce livre est précieux comme monument
historique, et comme un dépét qui doit étre & peu prés complet des connaissances
qu’on avait en Gréce ἃ cette époque.’

K K 2

500 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

(εἰσαγωγὴ ἁρμονική), and the division of the scale (κατατομὴ
κανόνος), and two essays on optics and catoptrics (ὑπτικὰ Kat
κατοπτρικά), are the only other works still extant in Greek
which are attributed to Euclid. The first of these is assigned
in some of the manuscripts to Cleonidas. The others have
been rejected by various editors, either on account of their
want of vigour or from other reasons, more or less valid.

The following works attributed to Euclid are either lost or
exist only in translations or re-translations from the Arabic. On
the division of surfaces (περὶ διαιρέσεων), from the Arabic of
Mohammed of Bagdad ; de levi et ponderoso, a Latin fragment
only ; four books on conic sections (κωνικῶν βιβλία δ men-
tioned by Pappus; three books of corollaries or deductions
(πορισμάτων βιβλία γ᾽} mentioned by Proclus and Pappus, and

discussed in a special essay by Robert Simson, the celebrated -

translator of the Elements ;* two books on plane loci (τόπων
ἐπιπέδων [3') mentioned by Pappus; two books on the relations
between loci and a given surface (τόπων πρὸς ἐπιφάνειαν βιβλία
B’) mentioned by Pappus and Eutocius ; and a treatise on fal-
lacies (περὶ Wevdapiwv) referred to by Proclus.

ARCHIMEDES, who is scarcely less celebrated than Euclid,
though much less studied, was a native of Syracuse, and, as it

1 These two works are printed in Meibomius, Antique Musiew auctores septem,
Amstel. 1652. Of the κατατομὴ κανόνος, Bockh says (De Arati Canone, p. 102):
‘constat canonis sectionem, canonices musice opus, nihil esse aliud nisi musicorum
certi alicujus systematis sonorum in monochordo designationem, que secundum
longitudinem chordarum instituatur.’

2 Montucla (Hist. d. Mathem. I. p. 215) thinks that the Porismata must be
reckoned as the most profound work of Euclid, and that it would have been most
honoured, if it had come down complete to our times.

3 Tractatus de Porismm. ; Roberti Simsoni opera qiuedann reliqua, Glasg. 1776,

315.
᾿ 4 This title is rightly rendered by Commandine loci ad swperficiem, for
ἐπιφάνεια means the upper or illuminated surface of any plane (see Euclid, Zlem.
I. ἐ: ἐπιφάνεια δὲ ἐστι ὃ μῆκος καὶ πλάτος μόνον ἔχει. Cf. Polyb. VI. 23. 3.
Aristot. H. 4. 1. 16). Professor De Morgan says (Smith’s Dict. ΤΙ, p. 70): ‘what
these τόποι π. ἐ. were, neither Pappus nor Eutocius informs us; the latter says
they derive their name from their own ἰδιότης, which there is no reason to doubt.
We suspect that the books and the meaning of the title were as much lost in the
time of Eutocius as now.’ It appears to us that this treatise differed from that on
plane loci merely in this, that the former discussed the relations of Joci in the same
plane, this the relations of loci to a given plane.

—

ARCHIMEDES. 501

seems, a man of humble origin.’ He was born, according to
Tzetzes, in B.c. 287, for he was seventy-five years old when he
lost his life at the storming of Syracuse by Marcellus in B.c.
212.’ According to Proclus, he travelled to Egypt at an early
age, and studied mathematics there in the school of Euclid, or
under Conon the Samian. At a later period he constructed an
enormous vessel for Hiero, king of Syracuse, which was pre-
sented to Ptolemy Euergetes.* This ancient Leviathan was
launched by means of a screw invented by Archimedes,‘ and a
water-screw was also contrived by him for pumping the water
out of the hold. It seems that he sailed to Alexandria in the
ship, and that he taught the Egyptians the application of his
water-screw to the annual business of irrigating the Delta.’
His connexion with the school of Alexandria is farther shown
‘by his sending the problem about the oxen of the sun in a
letter to Eratosthenes.’ The greater part of his life, however,
was spent at Syracuse, where he not only distinguished himself
as a pure mathematician and astronomer, and as the founder of
the theory of Statics, but applied his knowledge to the con-
struction of machines, and not only those which were of use
for peaceful purposes, but also and especially of those engines
of war, the necessity for which applied the first stimulus to the
mechanical ingenuity of the Greeks. The siege of Samos by
Pericles is said to have given rise to the first improvement in
this artillery ;’ it received a special development under Deme-
trius Poliorcetes, in whose time Dionysius of Alexandria is said
to have contrived for the Rhodians a catapult for shooting
volleys of arrows at the same time (πολυβόλος καταπέλτης) ὃ
But Archimedes has the credit of carrying -this application of

1 Cic. Tusc. V. 23, § 64: ‘ex e&dem urbe humilem homunculum a pulvere et
radio excitabo, Archimedem.’ Plutarch seems to have imagined that he was a
relation of king Hiero. He says (Vit. Marcelli, 14. p. 305 fin.): ᾿Αρχιμήδης Ἱέρωνι
τῷ βασιλεῖ συγγενὴς ὧν καὶ φίλος.

3 Tzetzes, Chil. II. tos. 3 Athen. V. p. 206 D.

4 Id. p. 207 A: κατασκεύασας γὰρ ἕλικα τὸ τηλικοῦτον σκάφος εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν
κατήγαγε" πρῶτος δ᾽ ᾿Αρχιμήδης εὗρε τὴν τῆς ἕλικος κατασκεύην.

> Diodor. I. 34. Vitruv. X. 11.

8 See Hermann, De Archimedis Problemate Bovino, Opusc. IV. pp. 228 sqq. ἡ

7 Ephorus (Fragm. 117, Miiller) apud Plut. Pericl. 27. See, however, Grote,
Hist. of Gr. VI. p. 38, note.

8 Diodor. XX. 48. Philo. in Math. vet. pp. 73, 76.

502 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

ingenuity much farther than any of his predecessors or con-
temporaries, and his engines were so powerful that he is said
to have obliged Marcellus to convert the siege of Syracuse into
a blockade.’ The story about his burning the enemy’s ships
by reflections from a mirror is probably a fiction.’

The great discoveries of Archimedes were the following :—
(1) He demonstrated -the first principle of Statics by ‘establish-
ing, on true grounds, the general proposition concerning a
straight lever, loaded with two heavy bodies, and resting upon
a fulcrum.’ The proposition is, that two bodies, so circum-
stanced, will balance each other, when the distance of the
smaller body from the fulerum is greater than the distance of
the other in exactly the same. proportion in which the weight
of the body is less.’* This theory of the lever, which was the
foundation of all that was known of Statics till the seventeenth
century, was fully appreciated, in all its consequences, by
Archimedes himself, and he is reported to have said: ‘ Give me
a locus standi, and I will move the whole world with my stil-
γα. (2) He invented the -planetarium or orrery ; there are
many references to his contrivance for representing the moye-
ments of the heavenly bodies, but we have no particular
description of it.’ (3) He discovered the ratio (1) between the
area of a great circle and the surface of a sphere, and that (3)
between the volumes and surfaces of the sphere and circum-
scribing cylinder. To the latter he attached so much impor-
tance, that he directed a sphere inscribed in a cylinder to be
placed on his tomb, and his wish was attended to; for Cicero,
when queestor in Sicily B.c. 75, found his tomb with this figure
upon it, overgrown with briars and unknown to the Syracusans”

1 Plut. Marcell. τ5---τ8. Liv. XXIV. 34. Polyb. VIII. 5—9.

2 See the authorities quoted in Smith’s Dictionary, I. pp. 270, 271. The possi-
bility of the story is discussed by Montucla, Hist. d. Math. I. p. 233 564.

8 It is clear that Aristotle did not understand the principle of the lever, for he
takes the water as the weight and the rowlock as the fulcrum of the oar (Mechanica,
Cc. 4). :

4 Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, I. p. 97.

5 Tzetzes apud Wallis, III. 537, 545 : δὸς ποῦ στῶ καὶ χαριστίωνι τὰν γᾶν κινήσω
πᾶσαν.

§ Cic. De Nat. Deorwm, II. 35, § 88. usc. I. 25, § 63. Ovid, Fast. VI. 277.
Claudian, Epigr. XXI. in spheram Archimedis, το.

ARCHIMEDES. 503

themselves, near one of the city gates." (4) He solved the
theorem of the centre of gravity of a triangle, of the quadrature
of the parabola, and of the dimensions of the circle. (5) He
invented the water-organ, the pulley, and the hydraulic screw.
(6) He discovered the relation between the weight of bodies
and the displacement of the water in which they are immersed.
There is a celebrated account of the circumstances which led
him to this discovery. Hiero suspected that there was an
admixture of silver in a golden crown which he had received
from his goldsmith, and Archimedes undertook to ascertain it
without interfering with the metal of the crown. The method
of investigation was suggested to him by observing, while in
the bath, that a body immersed in water loses weight in pro-
portion to the displaced volume of the water. In his joy he
rushed, naked as he was, into the street, shouting, ‘I have
found it, I have found it’ (εὕρηκα, εὕρηκα), words which have
become proverbial for sudden discoveries.’

When Syracuse was taken by surprise Marcellus gave in-
junctions that Archimedes should be spared. But one of the
soldiers, finding him engaged in his studies, and irritated by
his request that his mathematical instruments might not be
touched, slew him in the heat of the moment. Marcellus
regretted his death, and treated his family with kindness and
liberality.’

The works of Archimedes, written in the Doric dialect, are
as follows :* (1) on the sphere and the cylinder in two books ;
(2) on the dimensions of the circle, in which he shows that the
ratio of the periphery to the diameter is less than > and greater
than 55 ; (3) on the equilibrium of planes.and their centres of
gravity ; (4) on spheroids and conoids, in two books, in which
he proves that the surface of the ellipse is to that of the cir-
cumscribed circle as the minor axis is to the major, which is

1 Cic. Tusc. V. 23, §§ 64—66. He had some of the underwood cleared away,
and prides himself very much on his discovery. ‘Ita nobilissima Greeciz civitas,
quondam vero etiam doctissima, sui civis unius acutissimi monumentum ignorasset,
nisi ab homine Arpinate didicisset.’

2 Vitruv. IX. 3. Proclus in Zucl. II. 3.

3 Plut. Marcell. 19, who gives three accounts of the circumstances of the death
of Archimedes.

4 See Torelli’s edition, Oxon. 1792, and Peyrard’s French translation, Paris, 1808,

504 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

also the diameter of the circle; (5) on spirals; (6) on the quad-
rature of the parabola; (7) on the number of the sand (Wappi-
της), m which he shows that it is possible to give a greater
number to the grains of sand than would be included in a ball,
bounded by the sphere of the fixed stars; (8) the epigram on
the number of the oxen of the sun (πρόβλημα βοεικόν).

The most eminent Alexandrian mathematician of the school
of Euclid was Arottonivus, born at Perga in Pamphylia, in the
reign of Euergetes, and distinguished as a writer in the capital
of Egypt, under Philopator (B.c. 221—204).' His commen-
tator, Eutocius, calls him ‘the great geometer,’ and he enjoys
the reputation of having perfected the doctrine of conic’
sections.” His predecessors considered the cone as cut by a
plane perpendicularly to one of its sides, and therefore required
three distinct cones, right-angled, acute-angled, and obtuse-
angled, in order to obtain the parabola, ellipse, and hyperbola
respectively ; whereas Apollonius derived these conclusions
from the sections of any cone with a circular base by varying
the inclination of the cutting plane. Of his great work on the
subject, the conic elements (κωνικὰ στοιχεῖα) in eight books,
only the first four have come down to us in Greek. The
eighth is Jost altogether, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh were
recovered, in the seventeenth century, from two Arabic manu-
scripts at Leyden and Florence. The eighth has been restored
by our countryman, Edward Halley,’ from the lemmas of
Pappus. We are told by Eutocius that Heraclius, in his life
of Archimedes, accused Apollonius of appropriating the un-
published conic sections of the great mathematician of Syracuse ;
but, as Geminus remarked, neither Archimedes nor Apollonius
discovered conic sections, and no one can deny to the latter*
the great improvements in the discussion of this branch of

1 Eutoc. Comm. in Apoll. Con. I. Photius Cod. CXC.

2 Ruhnken, Oratio de Grecia artium ac doctrinarum inventrice, p. 95: * Archi-
medi tum alios, si libet, adjicite, tum imprimis prestantem arte sua hominem,
Apollonium Pergeum, qui primus omnium, quantum scimus, latentes antehae et
obscuras conicarum sectionum proprietates in lucem protulit et scienter decla-
ravit.’

3 Apollonit Pergai Conicorum, Libr. VILI., Oxon, 1710.

4 Montucla (Hist. ὦ. Mathem. I. p. 246) does not hesitate to pronounce the Conic
Sections of Apollonius ‘un des ouvrages les plus précieux de l'antiquité.’

ERATOSTHENES. 505.

mathematics to which we have already adverted. It was
Apollonius, too, who invented the name of ellipse and
hyperbola for the sections of the acute-angled and obtuse-
angled cone. The section of the right-angled cone was
called parabola by Archimedes,’ who, as we have seen, wrote
upon its quadrature. It was Apollonius also, who distinguished
the diameters from the axes of the other two conic sections,
and restricted the term axis in the parabola to the line which
passes through the vertex and the focus.

Besides the conic sections, we are informed by Pappus that
the following works were written by Apollonius of Perga: (1)
how to cut segments from two given lines in a given ratio
(περὶ λόγου ἀποτομῆς), and so as to contain a given rectangle
(περὶ χωρίου ἀποτομῆς); (2) on the determinate section (περὶ
διωρισμένης τομῆς); (3) on plane loci (περὶ τόπων ἐπιπέδων):
these subjects have been discussed by R. Simson, the editor of
Euclid, who has endeavoured to reproduce the solutions of
Apollonius ;? (4) on tactions (περὶ ἐπαφῶν); (5) on inclinations
(περὶ νεύσεων).

We have already referred in general terms to the diversified
labours of Eratosthenes, and to his special merits as a chrono-
loger. Before we attempt to explain what he did in more
than one application of mathematical science, it will be right
to state what is known of his personal history. ErarostHEnes,
the son of Aglaus* of Cyrene, was born B.c. 276, and died
about 8.0. 196, it is said of voluntary starvation, because his
sight was growing dim.‘ He was, therefore, a younger con-

1 Originally παραβολὴ was a general term synonymous with μερισμὸς and signi-
fying division as opposed to multiplication. It was applied to the division of the
cone, when there was only one section for the same cone. In later Greek παρα-
βολὴ signifies any excentric curve: thus we have in Plutarch (Aratus 22): διὰ
πολλῶν ἑλιγμῶν καὶ παραβολῶν περαίνοντος πρὸς τὸ τεῖχος. The terms ἔλλειψις and
ὑπερβολὴ are the well known expressions used by Aristotle to denote the two vicious
extremes of excess and defect (Zth. Nic. 11, 6: τὸ 8 ἴσον μέσον τι ὑπερβολῆς καὶ
ἐλλείψεως), and it was applied to the two conic sections between which the circle
was regarded a sort of mean.

2 περὶ τόπων ἐπιπέδων. <A treatise in two books on Plane Loci. Restored by
R. Simson. Glasg. 1749.

ν According to Suidas some called his father Amihroging, but the best authorities
are in favour of the other name.

4 Suidas : ἀποσχόμενος τροφῆς διὰ τὸ ἀμβλυώττειν.

506 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

temporary of Archimedes, who, as we have seen, was his friend
and correspondent, and he flourished in the reigns of the third,
fourth, and fifth Ptolemies. He studied philosophy at Athens
under Ariston of Chios, and the academician Arcesilas, and laid
the foundations of his grammatical and critical knowledge
under Lysanias of Cyrene and his countryman Callimachus.
And he was himself the teacher of Aristophanes of Byzantium,
and other less known men of letters. It is stated that Ptolemy
Euergetes summoned him from Athens to Alexandria,’ and he
became the successor of Callimachus, and the immediate pre-
decessor of Apollonius of Rhodes, as the head of the library.
Of all the Alexandrians whom we have mentioned, Erato-
sthenes stands decidedly the highest. Comparing him with
Callimachus, who alone can vie with him in the versatility of
his mind, Strabo says that ‘Callimachus indeed was both a
poet and a grammarian, but that Eratosthenes was not only
these, but attained also to the highest excellence in philosophy
and mathematics.’* He used to be called the second or new
Plato (δεύτερος ἢ νέος Πλάτων), and certainly no one except
Aristotle could be compared with him in the compass and
accuracy of his knowledge.’ He was ‘ the admirable Crichton ἡ
of ancient learning, and was called ‘the Πένταθλος;,᾽ or ‘ quin-
tuple athlete,’ from the name of the champion in the public
games who excelled in all the five manifestations of bodily activity.
It is said that he was also called Para, because he attained to
the second place of excellence in all the sciences,’ and if this

1 Suidas: μετεπέμφθη ἐξ ᾿Αθηνῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ τρίτου Πτολεμαίου καὶ διέτριψε μέχρι
τοῦ πέμπτου.

2 XVII. p. 838 A: ὁ μὲν ποιητὴς ἅμα καὶ περὶ γραμματικὴν ἐσπουδακώς" ὁ δὲ καὶ
ταῦτα καὶ περὶ φιλοσοφίαν καὶ τὰ μαθήματα εἴ τις ἄλλος διαφέρων.

3 Bernhardy, Hratosthenica, Berol. 1822, pp. XIII. XIV.: ‘sive enim accura-
tissimum requiras doctrinarum complexum, sive eruditionem minutissima queque
adhibentem ac suis in locis reponentem, ratione, judicio subtilissimo, sagacitate
moderatam, sive humanitatem, que in angustiis aut anguli natura concessi aut
disquisitionum minime defixa, veritatem unice investiget, et ad justam ac liberalem
gentis humane sese emergat estimationem ; artiorem harum virtutum consocia-
tionem preter Aristotelem nemo ex antiquis auctoribus Eratosthene perfectius
instituisse deprehendatur.’

4 Suidas, as corrected by Meursius; Artemidor. Ephes. ap. Marc. Heracl. in
Geogr. min. ed. Hudson, I. p. 62: καὶ μετ᾽ ἐκεῖνον ᾿Ερατοσθένης ὃν βῆτα ἐκάλεσαν
oi τοῦ Μουσείου προστάντες, Chrestom. ex Strabone, ibid. 11, p. 5: ὅτι Ἔρατο-

ERATOSTHENES. 507

was the concession of his envious rivals, it is an admission of
little less value than that of the different Greek states when
they agreed to place Themistocles second to their own hero at
Salamis.’ But it is not certain that this was the meaning of
the distinctive affix. At any rate, there are two branches of
science in which Eratosthenes must be regarded as second to
none. ‘ He founded two sciences, says one of his modern
admirers,’ ‘both of which he found in their infancy—astro-
nomical geography, and chronology. His calculation of the
magnitude of the globe was recognized by modern science as
the most correct that has ever been made. His investigations
into the synchronisms of the Olympiads, and his indication of
the leading points in general Greek history, upwards to the
return of the Heracleide, and downwards to Alexander the
Great, became and remained the foundation of all the chrono-
logical researches of the ancient world. In geography he was
the guide and authority of Strabo and Ptolemy, in chronology
of Apollodorus and the later inquirers. He founded the
historical criticism of the primitive Greek history. As
Pythagoras was the first who bore the title of ‘ philosopher,’ so
Eratosthenes was first honoured with the name of ‘ philologer,’ *
a name which now includes every application of book know-
ledge, and which, according to one modern writer,’ implies
the knowledge of the known. But he was also an observer, a
collector of facts, an inductive philosopher, and his reputation
depends more on his discoveries, which have been duly recorded

σθένης οὔτε τῶν ἀπαιδεύτων ἣν, οὔτε τῶν γνησίως φιλοσοφούντων" διὸ καὶ βῆτα
ἐκαλεῖτο, ὡς τὰ δευτερεῖα φέρειν δοκῶν ἐπὶ πάσῃ παιδείᾳ. Other letters were used
as surnames ; see Jonsius, Hist. Phil. p. 147; Lehrs. Quest. ep. p. 19, quoted
by Parthey, Alex. Mus. p. 53, who cites from Simon De Magistris, p. 563,
two explanations of the Bra: ‘potuit enim Eratosthenes dici βῆτα, quod Serapei
bibliothecze prasesset, que secunda habebatur, aut Algyptio nomine a Grecis
delinito, dictus fuit βαϊήθ (ψυχὴ καὶ καρδία). Apollonius of Perga was called
ε from his fondness for observing the moon, which, in its crescent form, resembled
that letter.

1 Herodotus, VIII. 123.

2 Bunsen, Zgypten, I. p. 158.

3 Bernhardy, Hratosthenica, p. XIV.; Wyttenbach, ad Plutarch. de audiendis
Poetis, p. 22 ο. [p. 226].

* Steinthal, De pronomine relativo, p. 5: ‘ itaque una viri doctissimi atque cla-
rissimi Béckhii definitio mihi videtur recta : philologiam esse cogniti cognitionem.’

508 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

and transmitted to us, than on his literary labours, which are
represented only by a few fragments.

The works of Eratosthenes fell into two main classes, the
mathematical and the literary; to the former belonged his
geographical and mathematical treatises, his astronomical poem
called Hermes, and probably also his poem Erigone; to the
latter, his treatises on the old comedy and on chronology, a
dialogue called Arsinoe, a book about Ariston, and a treatise
on moral philosophy (περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακών). His epistles,
too, are often mentioned. The historical works ascribed to
him, such as the treatise on the Gauls (Γαλατικά), of which
the thirty-third book is cited by Stephanus,’ were probably
written by another author of the same name, and the treatises
‘on freedom from pain’ (περὶ ἀλυπίας), and ‘on riches and
poverty’ (wept πλούτου καὶ πενίας), may have been parts of
the work on moral philosophy, which we have already men-
tioned. :

The geography of Eratosthenes (γεωγραφικά)" was in three
books.‘ In the first, after a general survey of the labours of
his predecessors, he gave his theories respecting the form of
the globe, and the changes which have taken place on its sur-
face. In the second, he discussed mathematical geography.
In the third, he collected all that was known of political
geography, and all that travellers had stated respecting the
different countries. This work was accompanied by a map, in
which he introduced for the first time a system of parallels of
latitude. The great achievement in this work was the dis-
covery of a correct method of determining the magnitude of
theearth.’ This he effected by a combination of geodzsy with
astronomy, namely, by comparing the distance from Alex-
andria to Syene with the corresponding are of the meridian.
He had ascertained the obliquity of the ecliptic by means of

1 Clem. Alex. Strom. p. 496.

2s. v. Ὕδρηλα ; see Bernhardy, τ. 5. p. 109.

3 See the collected fragments in Bernhardy, pp. 1-109.

4 ‘Geographica Eratosthenes tribus tantum libris complexus est, quorum ulti-
mum, neque eum totum, regionibus per capita describendis addixerat.’ Bern-
hardy, u. s.

> Varenius, Geographia, ed. Newton, Cambridge, 1681, p. 25.

s

ERATOSTHENES. 509

the armille, or great circles, which he induced Ptolemy
Euergetes to set up in the porch at Alexandria,’ and had stated
that the interval between the tropics was J of the circum-
ference? Having learned that deep wells at Syene were illu-
minated to the bottom at the summer solstice, he concluded
that this place was on the tropic,’ and assuming that Alexandria
and Syene were on the same meridian, because the Nile was
supposed to flow from south to north, he found that as the
zenith of Alexandria was distant from that of Syene by 4 of
the circumference, and as the distance of the two places was,
in round numbers, 5000 stadia, the circumference of the earth
must be, in round numbers, 250,000 stadia. The exact result
should have been 216,000 stadia.* The error of Eratosthenes,
however, was not in his method, which is that still adopted,
but in his assumptions, for the longitude of Alexandria differs
3° from that of Syene, and the distance of the two places is
not exactly measured. Pliny tells us’ that Eratosthenes
himself altered the result to 252,000 to give an exact number
of 700 stadia for the degree, which increased the error, for the
degree is 694: stadia.© He made another oversight in
neglecting the diameter of the sun’s image in the well. But
besides hitting on the right method, his results were much
nearer the truth than those of Aristotle’ and Archimedes,’® who
made the periphery 400,000 stadia, and 300,000 stadia re-
spectively.

The mathematical treatises of Eratosthenes are for the most
part lost. We have still his letters to Ptolemy, with the
accompanying epigram, on the solution of the Delian problem,

1 Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, I. p. 210.

3 Dr. Whewell says (ἃ. 8, p. 215): ‘it is probable that his observation gave him
47% degrees. The fraction τὶς τῆς Toho “33 which is very nearly =

3 The lat. of Syene, the modern Assouan, is 24° 10’ N,, and its long. 32° 59! Εἰ.
See De Morgan in Smith’s Dictionary II. p. 45.

4 Parthey, Alex. Mus. p. 193.

5 H, N. ΤΙ. 108, § 247: ‘universum autem circuitum Eratosthenes in omnium
quidem litterarum subtilitate, et in hac utique preter ceteros sollers, quem cunctis
probari video CCLITI. milium stadiorum prodidit.’

6 De Morgan, u. s. 7 De Colo 11. 14 fin,

8 Aren. II. init.

510 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

or the duplication of the cube,’ and Nicomachus’ has described
his ingenious arithmetical contrivance called ‘the sieve’
(κόσκινον), for detecting the prime numbers.

In the poem called Hermes, Eratosthenes used the mythology
of this Greek deity, in combination with that of his Egyptian
representative Thoth, as a convenient vehicle for the exposition
of the descriptive astronomy and its bearing on the calculation
of time, which were said by the Egyptian priests to have been
first taught by that divinity.2 The work called καταστερισμοί,
which is still extant, is a compilation from Hyginus,‘ who
probably made use of the Hermes of Eratosthenes. Erigone,
who gave her name to the constellation Virgo, was also in all
probability the subject of an astronomical poem.

Of the purely literary works, the most important were the
Chronographies, of which we have already spoken,’ and the
treatise on the old comedy, in twelve books, which, following
critically in the steps of Lycophron and Callimachus, not only
investigated with the greatest accuracy the history of the
authors and the arguments of the plays, but gave details re-
specting the arrangements of the theatre, the costume of the
actors, and the whole mise en scéne, which we are now obliged
to derive from secondary sources.’ Of his works referring to
the philosophy of the Athenian schools, we must regret the
loss of the book which he wrote about his own teacher, Ariston
of Chios, from which Athenzeus’ quotes the lively expression of
Eratosthenes, ‘I have already detected this man (the stoic
philosopher), who digs a hole in the party-wall between

1 Eutocius ad Archimedis spheram et cylindrum, pp. 21, 22, ed. Basil. Bern-
hardy, Eratosthenica, p. 175 566.

2 Arithmet. p. 17, Wechel. Bernhardy, p. 173.

3 Catasterism. c. 20: τὸ πρῶτον στοιχεῖον ‘Epuod θέντος ὃς τὸν Sitaxoomoy τῶν
ἄστρων ἐποιήσατο. ‘Ex opinione modo memorataé, que non omnino ab Erato-
sthene conficta esse videtur sed potius secundum A®gyptiorum disciplinam
numinis Thot inventa Grecanico deo magnam imposuit partem.’ Bernhardy,

χε,
᾿ 4 ‘His inter se collatis et perpensis liquere opinor non Hyginum Catasterismos
expilasse, sed illi hos originem debere.’ Bernhardy, p. 129.

5 Above, p. 483 [323].

6 Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Gr. p. 11. Bernhardy, p. 203 sqq.

7 Athen. VII. p. 281 C.: ἤδη δέ wore καὶ τοῦτον πεφώρακα τὸν τῆς ἡδονῆς καὶ
ἀρετῆς μεσότοιχον διορύττοντα καὶ ἀναφαινόμενον παρὰ τῇ ἡδονῃ.

HIPPARCHUS. 511

pleasure and virtue, and makes his appearance in the abode of
the former.’ ;

From the founder of mathematical geography, we pass to
the father of exact astronomy, and we have in this case also to
repeat the regret that his greatest works are known to us only
at second hand. MHrprarcuus of Nica, in Bithynia, who
flourished in the middle of the second century B.c., and died
about B.c. 125, some seventy years after Eratosthenes,’ spent
the greater part of his life at Rhodes. His connexion with
the school of Alexandria, which has been generally taken for
granted, and which is not improbable in itself, cannot be
established by direct evidence.? It is certain that his imme-
diate forerunners, Timochares of Alexandria, and Conon of
Samos, were connected with the court of the Ptolemies, and
this is also surmised with regard to Aristyllus. Hipparchus
must have been influenced more or less directly by the
works of Eratosthenes,* and one of his earliest works, which is
still extant, namely, a commentary on the Phenomena of
Aratus, is a book of the Alexandrian order, and indicates a
course of study not unlike that of the Museum.‘ His great
work, the catalogue of the fixed stars,° may have borne a
similar relation to the Hermes of Eratosthenes, and the dis-
covery of the precession of the equinoxes, to which it led him,
had been anticipated in a rude way by the Egyptian astro-
nomers,’ from whom the Pythagoreans borrowed it.’ But if

1 Suidas: Ἵππαρχος, Νικαεύς, φιλόσοφος, γεγονὼς ἐπὶ τῶν ὑπάτων. On which
Reinesius observes: ‘melius dixisset, floruisse Perseo Romanis capto et tempore
belli Punici 3. et Numantini. Voss. de Scient. Mathem. c. 33.’ It seems that the text
of Suidas omits the names of the consuls (ὕπατοι), by whose year of office his birth
was fixed. ‘

2 See Delambre, Histoire de [' Astronomie ancienne, I., Discowrs préliminaire, pp.
xxi. xxiv. IT., p. 108.

3 A commentary on Aratus, written neither by Eratosthenes nor by Hipparchus,
is attributed by some to the former, by others to the latter. Delambre supposes
that it may have been an extract from a work by Eratosthenes (Hist. de [ Astr.
anc. I. p. 173).

4 See a full analysis of this commentary in Delambre, Hist. de Τ᾽ Astr. anc. L.,
pp. 106 sqq.

5 Delambre τι. s., pp. 290—3. He was the first author of the planisphere: Jd.
p- 315.

ὁ Lepsius, Chronologie der Zgypten, pp. 196 sqq.

7 Id. ibid. p. 206.

512 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

we had less reason than we have for numbering Hipparchus
among those who derived their training from the school of
Alexandria, we owe our acquaintance with his discoveries so
entirely to the work of Claudius Ptolemzeus, in which they are
incorporated, that we can hardly place him in any other con-
nexion. As a question of Greek literature, the system of
Hipparchus must be treated in connexion with that of Ptolemy;'
a full account of his discoveries belongs to the history of
mathematics, astronomy, or the inductive sciences in general,
and he has been duly honoured by the greatest writers on
these subjects, Montucla, Delambre, and Whewell. It will be
sufficient in this place to mention briefly what were the
general results of his labours.

Hipparchus discovered by his own observations, which ex-
tended from 8.0. 162,? when he first observed the autumnal
equinox, to B.c. 127,° assisted by those of Aristarchus of Samos,
that the ordinary solar year of 3654 days was five minutes too
long, and corrected the period of Callippus by deducting the
day of excess from the 304 years. He was the first to observe
accurately the anomaly of the sun’s motion, and constructed
solar tables by means of which the sun’s place with respect to
the stars could be correctly found at any time. In connexion
with this he established the theory of epicycles, or, what is
much the same thing, determined the orbit called the eccentric.
He made some progress in similar calculations with regard
to the path of the moon. By an ingenious contrivance, known
as the Diagramma Hipparchi, he determined the magnitude and
relative distance of the heavenly bodies. It was he, as we
have already mentioned, who first undertook a catalogue of the
fixed stars. He thus enumerated 1080, and indicated their

1 Below, chapter LVI., § 1.

2 He observed the autumnal equinox on the 30th of Mesore in the 17th year of
the third Callippic period = 27th Sept., 162 B.c. Clinton, F. H. III. p. 87.

3 According to Ptolemy (Syntaxis III. pp. 111, 112) he took observations
at Rhodes on the 22nd March, B.c. 128, on the 4th Aug., B.c. 128, on the
and May, B.c. 127, and on the 7th July, B.c. 127. See Clinton, 7. H. 111.

. ITQ.

: 5 Pliny in a remarkable passage (7. NV. II. 26, § 95) says that Hipparchus was
led to form this catalogue from the observation of a new moving star, probably a
comet.

HIPPARCHUS. 513

places in a καταστερισμὸς, or celestial map.’ It was in the
course of this labour that he determined, what was previously
known to the old astronomers,’ the precession of the equinoxes,?
and he wrote a special treatise on this subject. At first he
confined this movement to the stars in and near the zodiac,
but he eventually found that it was general. Having only
the imperfect observations of Timochares and Aristyllus to
compare with his own,* he was obliged to content himself with
fixing the minimum of this movement at 36” per annum, in-
stead of 50” 12, at which it is now estimated. He com-
pleted the method of determining the latitude and longitude
of places, to which Eratosthenes had made a first approxi-
mation; he calculated longitude by the eclipses of the moon,
and gave rules for predicting the eclipses both of the moon
and of the sun. Of the instruments with which he performed
all these observations, Ptolemy gives us no account. But it is
clear that he had few, if any, of the resources of a modern
observatory,’ and the Greek system of arithmetical notation
must have increased his difficulties in no slight measure.
What steps he took to obviate this inconvenience is not known,
but it may be inferred from an incidental notice in Plutarch
that he had drawn up a system of arithmetic, or had written
on the subject.© The operations undertaken by Hippar-
chus show that he was acquainted with stereographic projec.
tions, and with the methods of plane and spherical trigo-

1 He intended that his celestial map should represent the concavity of the
sphere, Delambre (Hist. de l’Astr. anc. I. p. 111) says: ‘ Attalusa voulu disculper
Aratus, en disant que le Dragon était peint tel qu’on le verrait de dehors,
Hipparque rejette cette excuse, en disant qu’on dessine les constellations pour
notre usage, telles que nous les voyons et tournées vers nous, ce qui est ἃ
remarquer.’

2 Lepsius, Chronologie der digypten, pp. 196209.

3 Delambre ἃ. 5, I. 175, II. 103.

4 Ptolem. Synt. VII. c. 14. Ideler, Handbuch, I. pp. 27, 193.

5 Ruhnen (de Grecia, &e., p. 96): ‘ erudita illa Grecorum gens ultra, quo
progrederetur, vix habuit, tum aliis caussis impedita, tum omni fere supellectile,
que sideribus observandis inserviat, destituta.’ And he adds: ‘quo magis
seepenumero veterum sagacitatem admiror, qui, que recentiores tuborum ope cog-
norint, eadem, tanquam divini, raré et singulari ingenii vi conjecerint.’

8 De repugnantiis Stoicis, p. 1047 Ὁ, V. I. p. 269, Wyttenb.: Χρύσιππον δὲ
πάντες ἐλέγχουσιν οἱ ἀριθμητικοί, ὧν καὶ Ἵππαρχός ἐστιν, ἀποδεικνύων τὸ
διάπτωμα τοῦ λογισμοῦ παμμέγεθες αὐτῷ γεγονός.

Vou. II. 1

514 PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.

nometry ;' and as no mention is made of these branches of pure
mathematics before his time, he must have the honour of the
discovery.

The only extant works of Hipparchus are his juvenile com-
mentary on Aratus and Eudoxus (τῶν ᾿Αράτου καὶ ᾿Εὐδόξου
Φαινομένων ἐξηγήσεων βιβλία y’), to which we have already re-
ferred, and which may be compared, in some respects, with
Newton’s first publication—the reprint of the Geography of
Varenius :* and the catalogue of the fixed stars (ἔκθεσις aorept-
σμῶν, OY περὶ τῶν ἀπλανῶν ἀναγραφαῖ), Which is quoted verbatim
in Ptolemy’s Syntavis.’ The following works are mentioned, but
are entirely lost: (1) on the magnitude and distances of the sun
and moon (περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων) “ we know that he
fixed the sun’s distance from the earth at 1200 radii of the earth ;
that of the moon at 59 radii; the diameter of the sun was 53
diameters of the earth, and the diameter of the earth was 32
diameters of the moon; (2) on the movement of the moon in
latitude (περὶ τῆς κατὰ πλάτος μηνιαίας τῆς σελήνης κινήσεως) ;°
(3) on the length of the month (περὶ μηνιαίου χρόνου) ;° (4) on
the length of the year (περὶ ἐνιαυσίου μεγέθους) ;’ (5) on the
retrogradation of the solstitial and equinoctial points (περὶ τῆς
μεταπτώσεως τῶν τροπικῶν Kal ἰσημερινῶν σημείων) ; (6) on
intercalated months and days (περὶ ἐμβολίμων μηνῶν τε καὶ
ἡμερῶν) ; ;° (7) on the theory of the straight lines in a circle
(περὶ τῆς πραγματείας τῶν ἐν κύκλῳ εὐθειῶν), probably a
treatise on plane trigonometry ;” (8) on gravitation (περὶ τῶν
διὰ βάρος κάτω φερομένων) ;" (9) on eclipses of the sun (περὶ
ἐκλείψεων ἡλίου κατὰ τὰ ἕπτα KAtmara);” (10) acriticism on the
geography of Eratosthenes, of which Strabo quotes the second

1 See Delambre, Hist. de l’Astr. anc. I. p. 117.

* Berhn. Vareni Geographia generalis, ab Isaaco ΠΥ ΤΙ Math. Prof. Lucas.
apud Cantabrigienses, ed. II. Cantabr. 1681.

3 Ptolemy, VII: 5. Perhaps this work included the two mentioned by Suidas as :
περὶ τῆς τ. ἀ. συντάξεως καὶ καταστερισμοῦ.

4 Ptolemy, ἐδέά. 5 Mentioned by Suidas and Eudocia.

6 Mentioned by Galen. 7 Ptolemy, ITI. 2. 8 Id.

9 Ptolemy, Syntaxis, III. 2, p. 63, quoted by Clinton, F. H. II. p. 339, note
v., who has shown how nearly Hipparchus approximated to the true time.

10 Theon, Comment. in Almagest. I. 9.

14 Simplicius, de Calo, I. p. 61 B.

12 Achilles Tatius, Isagog. in Arat. Phenom. 19. p. 139. Cf. Plin. H. N, IL. 12.

HIPPARCHUS. 515

book.‘ The diligence and accuracy of this review are highly
commended by Pliny,’ but Strabo thinks that Hipparchus was
somewhat unfair in bringing his accurate geometry to bear on
the rough and general views of his illustrious predecessor.

Such was the great Hipparchus, of whom Pliny says that he
is never sufficiently praised,‘ and whom he places by the side of
Thales, as ἃ man of more than human ability : whom even the
fastidious Delambre considers ‘one of the most extraordinary
men of antiquity, the very greatest in the sciences which require
a combination of observation with geometry.’® If the patronage
of the Ptolemies had produced no result beyond the encourage-
ment which it afforded to labours like his and those of
Eratosthenes, we must regard it as the best bestowed muni-
ficence that ever graced the throne of a military sovereign.
And Alexandria may thus claim, in addition to its services in
furnishing warehouse-room for the literature of Greece, and
mustering a troop of careful editors and commentators, the
distinction of having encouraged the first beginnings of the
greatest of inductive sciences. It is only to be regretted that
we have so often saved from the ruins of the library the results
of scholastic industry and ingenuity, instead of those efforts of
original genius which have left their impress on the intellectual
world.

235. p. 69.

3 H. N. 11. 108, ὃ 247: ‘Hipparchus et in coarguendo eo et in reliqué omni
diligentia mirus.’

3 II. p. 79: ἀγνωμονεῖν δὴ δόξειεν ἂν ὁ Ἵππαρχος πρὸς Thy τοιαύτην ὁλοσχέρειαν
γεωμετρικῶς ἀντιλέγων.

4 H. N. II. 26, ὃ 95 : ‘idem Hipparchus, nunquam satis laudatus, ut quo nemo
magis adprobaverit cognationem cum homine siderum animasque nostras partem
esse ceeli,’ For the sentiment, cf. IT, 12, §§ 54, 55, and 11, ὃ 49.

5 H. N. 12, §§ 53—55.

® The words of Delambre deserve to be quoted in the original (Hist. de I’ Astr.
anc, I. pp. 185, 6): ‘quand on réunit tout ce qu’il a inventé ou perfectionné,
qu'on songe au nombre de ses ouvrages, ἃ la quantité de calculs qu’ils supposent,
on trouve dans Hipparque un des hommes les plus étonnans de I’antiquité, et le
plus grand de tous dans les sciences qui ne sont pas purement spéculatives, et qui
démandent qu’aux connaissances géométriques on réunisse des connaissances de
faits particuliers et de phénoménes dont Vobservation exige beaucoup d’assiduité

et des instrumens perfectionnés.’ For the value of this praise, see Whewell’s
History of the Inductive Sciences, I. p. 191.

END OF VOL. 11.

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